ABORTION— PART 3
RECEIVED
HEARING btc 2 oi976
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE d# LAW umm -
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
NINETY-THIRD CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
S.J. Res. 119
PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
UNITED STATES FOR THE PROTECTION OF UNBORN CHILDREN
AND OTHER PERSONS
AND
S.J. Res. 130
PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
UNITED STATES GUARANTEEING THE RIGHT OF LIFE TO THE
UNBORN, THE ILL, THE AGED, OR THE INCAPACITATED
Part 3
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
faJMhiM/lX.S
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
57-782 O WASHINGTON : 1975
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20102 - Price $4.10
JflOTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL of LAW LIBRARY
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
93d Congress, 2d Session
JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman
JOHN L. McCLELLAN, Arkansas ROMAN L. HRUSKA, Nebraska
SAM J. KKVIN, Jr., North Carolina HIRAM L. FONG, Hawaii
PHILIP A. HART, Michigan HUGH SCOTT, Pennsylvania
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
BIRCH BAYH, Indiana MARLOW W. COOK, Kentucky
QUENTIN N BURDICK, North Dakota CHARLES McC. MATHIAS, Jr., Maryland
ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia EDWARD J. GURNEY, Florida
JOHN V. TUNNEY, California
Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments
BIRCH BAYH, Indiana, Chairman
JAMES O. EASTLAND. Mississippi HIRAM L. FONG. Hawaii
SAM J. ERYIX. Jr.. North Carolina ROMAN L. HRUSKA, Nebraska
ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
QUENTIN N. BURDICK, North Dakota MARLOW W. COOK, Kentucky
JOHN V. TUNNEY, California HUGH SCOTT, Pennsylvania
(ID
WITNESSES BY DATE
August 21, 1974
White, Mr. Ray L., executive director, National Right to Life Committee, iPaee
Inc., Washington, D.C 1
VanDerhoef, Mr. Kenneth, chief administrative officer and pre&ident,
National Right to Life Committee, Inc., Seattle, Wash 1
Jefferson, Dr. Mildred, M.D., Chairman of the Board, National Right to
Life Committee, Inc., Boston, Mass 7
Engle, Ms. Randy, director, U.S. Coalition for Life, Export, Pa 20
Goltz, Ms. Pat, president, Feminists for Life, Columbus, Ohio 107
Schaller, Rev. Warren A., president and executive director, American
Citizens Concerned for Life, Washington, D.C 163
September 12, 1974
Lowry, Ms. Pamela Lee, Executive Committee, National Abortion Rights
Action League, codirector, MORAL Constitutional Defense Project,
Boston, Mass 169
Roudebush, Mrs. Dorothy, president, Committee for Legal Abortion,
St. Louis, Mo 176
Shoup, Dr. Jane R., Indiana Freedom of Choice Coalition, Hammond,
Ind. 186
Furlong-Cahill, Dr. Jane, a national director, Catholics for a Free Choice,
Athens, Ga 195
October 8, 1974
Noonan, Mr. John T. ; Jr., professor of law, University of California,
Berkeley, Calif 213
Ely, Mr. John, professor of law, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass . . 250
Tribe, Mr. Laurence H., professor of law, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass 292
Heymann, Mr. Philip B., professor of law, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass 253
WITNESSES ALPHABETICALLY
Ely, Mr. John, professor of law, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.. 250
Engle, Ms. Randy, director, U.S. Coalition for Life, Export, Pa 20
Furlong-Cahill, Dr. Jane, a national director, Catholics for a Free Choice,
Athens, Ga 195
Goltz, Ms. Pat, president, Feminists for Life, Columbus, Ohio 107
Heymann, Mr. Philip B., professor of law, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass 253
Jefferson, Dr. Mildred, M.D., chairman of the board, National Right to
Life Committee, Inc., Boston, Mass 7
Lowry, Ms. Pamela Lee, Executive Committee, National Abortion Rights
Action League, codirector, MORAL Constitutional Defense Project,
Boston, Mass 169
Noonan, Mr. John T., Jr., professor of law, University of California,
Berkeley, Calif 213
Roudebush, Mrs. Dorothy, president, Committee for Legal Abortion,
St. Louis, Mo ---- 176
Schaller, Rev. Warren A., president and executive director, American
Citizens Concerned for Life, Washington, D.C 163
Shoup, Dr. Jane R., Indiana Freedom of Choice Coalition, Hammond,
Ind . 186
Tribe, Mr. Laurence H., professor of law, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass 292
(Hi)
IV
VanDerhoef, Mr. Kenneth, chief administrative officer and president, Pa K e
National Right to Life Committee, Inc., Seattle, Wash 1
White, Mr. Ray L., executive director, National Right to Life Committee,
Inc., Washington, D.C 1
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS AND MATERIALS
Alexander, Leo, "Medical Science Under Dictatorship", Child and Family,
vol. 10, No. 1, 1971. Submitted for hearing record by Pat Goltz 134
Billman, Donald L., J.D., "Equal Justice under Law", paper prepared for
distribution by the Aloha Club, Inc., of Hawaii 443
Billman, Donald L., J.D., "The Case for the Unborn Baby, The Constitu-
tional Right to Life", reprinted from Discovery, vol. 4, No. 4, Toledo,
Ohio, Spring 1971 1 447
Billman, Donald Lynn, J.D., letter to Senator Bayh, Columbus Ohio,
Aug. 7, 1974 441
Brooks, Sylvia, "In Pregnancy Counseling — Delays Hurting Abortion
Efforts," Columbus Citizen — Journal, March 29, 1974, submitted for
the record by Ms. Pat Goltz 126
Cadigan, George Lelsie, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri,
Statement on Liberalizing the Abortion Statute, submitted for the
record bv Mrs. George S. Roudebush 185
Callahan, Sidney, "Talk of 'Wanted Child' Makes for Doll Objects,"
National Catholic Reporter, December 3, 1971, submitted for the
record by Ms. Pat Goltz 1 22
Callahan, Sidney, "Feminist as Antiabortionist," National Catholic
Reporter, April 7, 1972, submitted for the record by Ms. Pat Goltz 123
Cutright, Phillips and Karen B., "Abortion: The Court Decision and Some
Consequences of a Constitutional Amendment", prepared for Planned
Parenthood- World Population, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.,
July 1973, revised September 1973 ' 463
Doyle, R. F., president, Men's Rights Association, Position on Abortion,
St. Paul, Minn 456
Ely, John Hart, "The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade",
reprint No. 15, American Enterprise Institute, from Yale Law Journal,
vol. 82, No. 5, April 1973 257
Engcl, Mrs. Randy, material relating to the membership of the U.S.
Coalition for Life, Export, Pa., submitted for record, Sept. 26, 1974 104
Engel, Mrs. Randy, editor, U.S. Coalition for Life, Newsletter, vol. 1,
No. 1, Export, Pa., September 1972 30
Engel, Mrs. Randv, editor, U.S. Coalition for Life, Newsletter, Export,
Pa., vol. 2, No. 2, January 1973 34
Engel, Mrs. Randy, editor, Pro-Life Reporter, published by U.S. Coalition
for Life, Export, Pa., vol. 2, No. 3, May 1973 46
Engel, Mrs. Randy, editor, Pro-Life Reporter, published by U.S. Coalition
for Life, Export, Pa., vol. 3, No. 6, Spring 1974 74
Engel, Mrs. Randv, editor, Pro-Life Reporter, published by the U.S.
Coalition for Life, Export, Pa., vol. 2, No. 4, August 1973 58
Fager, Charles E., "Abortion Positions — So Who's the Radical?." National
Catholic Reporter, submitted for the record by Ms. Pat Goltz 124
Fisher, Diane, chairperson, Tri-County Coalition for the Right to Choose,
"Abortion, Statement for the Hearing Record", Youngstown, Ohio,
Feb. 18, 1974 .. . . 396
Goltz, Ms. Pat, letter to Senator Bayh, Columbus, Ohio, Aug. 30, 1974___ 163
Harvey, Matthew, J., Assistant Administrator for Legislative Affairs,
Agency for International Development, Washington, D.C, letter to
Senator Bayh, Aug. 27, 1974 396
Heffernan, Gloria V., M.D., "Abortion Exploits Women," from the
I Chicago Tribune, submitted for the record by Ms. Pat Goltz 120
Hermann, Philip P., and Douglas E. Barzelay, "The Forest and the Trees:
Wade and Lts Critics , reprinted from the Boston University Law
Review, vol. 53, No. 4, July 1973 354
Eogan, Hon. Lawrence J., former Member of Congress from the State of
Maryland, "The Embattled Minority: Out of Sight Out of Mind",
The Maryland Law Forum, Winter 1971 428
Kagay, Marjorie, chairman, New York State Division Legislative Com-
mittee, American Association of Universitv Women, letter to Senator
Bayh, Feb. 27, L974 455
Kesel Robert E., president, Association for Grand Jury Action, Inc., Pa ^
Rochester, N.Y., letter to Senator Bayh, Mar. 31, 1974. 454
Keyser, David, president, Milwaukee Chapter, Wisconsin Citizens Con-
cerned for Life, letter and statement on the Constitutional Amendments
on Abortion, Aug. 16, 1974 ---- --- ------ 435
Langmyhr, George, M.D., "The Role of Planned Parenthood-World
Population in Abortion", Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology, vol. 14,
pg. 1190, 1971, from Planned Parenthood- World Population, New
York, N.Y.; submitted by Mrs. Randy Engel 89
Leonard, Merrill G., editor, "Handbook for the Right to Choose", Fowler,
Ohio 1974 ^^
LeVan,' Rose "Gordon, president, Lake County Women's Council, East
Chicago, Ind., statement on the Constitutional Amendments on Abor-
tion 43 J
McLeod" Julie, Zero Population Growth, Fort Wayne Chapter, "State-
ment on Constitutional Amendments on Abortion", Mar. 28, 1974 433
Medical Tribune, "Family-Planning Units Urged to Make Genetic Re-
ferrals", May 8, 1973, submitted by Mrs. Randy Engel 89
Medical World News, "Abortion in Japan after 25 Years," November 8,
1973, submitted for the record by Ms. Pat Goltz 128
Moore, Emily C, "The Major Issues and the Arguments in the Abortion
Debate", taken from the appendix of the author's article, "Abortion
and Public Policy: What are the Issues?", New York Law Forum, vol.
XVII, No. 2, 1971, reprinted by the National Association for Repeal of
Abortion Laws ----, — - 5 '
Noonan, John T., Jr., "Raw Judicial Power" reprinted from National
Review, Mar. 2, 1973 ----- 222
Noonan, John T., Jr., "The Family and the Supreme Court , Catholic
University Law Review, vol. 23, No. 2, Winter 1973 227
North Dakota, results of election of Nov. 7, 1972, on abortion question __ 474
Rapoport, Roger, "The Abortion Kickbacks," Feminists for Life, Janu-
ary 14, 1974, submitted for the record by Ms. Pat Goltz .__ 127
Roberdeau, Mrs. Larry, chairman, Rapid City Right to Life, letter to J.
William Heckman, chief counsel, Sept. 6, 1974 473
Silverman, Judy, coordinator, Coalition for Freedom of Choice, Minnea-
polis, Minn., letter to Senator Bayh, Mar. 4, 1974 «— ,1 453
The Uncertified Human, "Euthanasia: the Latest Threat is on the Rise,
submitted for the record by Ms. Pat Goltz — - - 1 2w
The Uncertified Human, "Michael Litchfield Discovers", vol. 2, No. 2, July
1974, submitted for record by Ms Pat Goltz 161
Tribe, Laurence H., "The Supreme Court 1972 Term, Foreword: Toward
a Model of Roles in the Due Process of Life and Law", reprinted from
Harvard Law Review, vol. 87, No. 1, Nov. 1973 293
Weick, Paul C, and Don J. Young, "The Ohio Decision on Abortion ,
Child and Family, vol. 10, No. 1, 1971, submitted for record by Ms. Pat
Goltz -- 153
Woodstock Right to Life Committee, Woodstock, Vt., petition submitted
for the record by Senator Stafford, Mar. 5, 1974 463
ABORTION
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1974
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments
or the Committee of the Judiciary,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:25 a.m., in room
1202, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Birch Bayh (chairman
of the subcommittee), presiding.
Present: Senators Bayh (presiding), and Fong.
Also present: J. William Heckman, Jr., chief counsel, Abby
Brezina, chief clerk, and Teddie Phillips, assistant clerk.
Senator Bath. We will reconvene our hearings, if you please.
Our first two witnesses are Dr. Kenneth VanDerhoef, president,
National Right to Life Committee, and Dr. Mildred Jefferson, chair-
man of the board. National Right to Life Committee. They will be
introduced by Ray White, the executive director of the committee.
Good morning.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH D. VANDERHOEF, PRESIDENT, NA-
TIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE COMMITTEE, INC., ACCOMPANIED BY
RAY L. WHITE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL RIGHT TO
LIFE COMMITTEE, INC.
Mr. White. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Ray L.
White. I am executive director of the National Right to Life Com-
mittee. The executive offices are located at 1200 15th Street, here in
Washington. .
It is my privilege this morning to introduce to the committee Ken-
neth VanDerhoef, who is the chief administrative officer and presi-
dent of the National Right to Life Committee, Inc.
Dr. Mildred Jefferson, chairman of the board, is arriving by air-
plane— it has been delayed— and so she should be here very shortly.
At the conclusion of Mr. VanDerhoef's testimony, he will intro-
duce Dr. Jefferson.
Kenneth VanDerhoef is married, has four children, ages 9 to 15.
He has a B.A. degree from the University of Gonzaga in Spokane.
Wash. He has done graduate study at the University of Washington
and the University of Oregon. His law degree was obtained from the
University of Gonzaca Law School.
After graduation from law school. "Sir. VanDerhoef was with the
King County prosecuting attorney's office. He was also assistant
attorney general in the State of Washington, the attorney general's
office.
(1)
Mr. VanDerhoef is now in private law practice with Geraghty,
Geraghty, VanDerhoef & Sawyer in Seattle, Wash.
Mr. VanDerhoef s professional affiliation are the American Bar
Association, Washington State Bar Association, American Trial
Lawyers Association, Washington State Trial Lawyers Association,
Seattle-King County Bar Association, judge pro tempore, Seattle
Municipal Court, vice president and member of the Board of Trust-
ees, Providence Medical Center. Seattle, past president of the Uni-
versity of Gonzaga Law School National Alumni Association, mem-
ber of the Board of Directors of the University of Gonzaga National
Alumni Association, president of Human Life Association, Wash-
ington State.
Mr. VanDerhoef served with the first Board of Directors of the
National Right to Life Committee, which was first convened in 1969.
And so it is my privilege. Mr. Chairman, to introduce to you Kenneth
VanDerhoef, president. National Right to Life Committee.
Senator Bath. Well, thank you very much.
Mr. VanDerhoef?
Mr. VanDerhoef. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before
you on behalf of the National Right to Life Committee, hopefully
to assist this committee in the resolution of a national concern that
demands the most sensitive type of legislation. This legislation must
protect and guarantee the most basic right of our heritage, that is,
the right to life.
By way of introduction, I also would like to outline what the Na-
tional Right to Life Committee is. The National Right to Life Com-
mittee is an affiliation of State right to life organizations throughout
the United States. Each of the 50 States has a member on our board
of directors, and the 50-member board are the actual managers of the
corporation. While every State of the Union is represented, they vary
rather substantially from State to State, both in their organization
and membership. In such States as California, we have over 120 right
to life groups, all of them affiliated, however, under a State affiliation
and coalition represented by one member on our board of directors.
Various States, as T mentioned, vary in both their membership and
the structures that they have.
Over the past several years, the National Right to Life Committee
has been able to draw upon these individual State organizations for
assistance and guidance, such organizations as the Human Life Or-
ganization on the State of Washington, which is the first group to be
involved in a State referendum vote in 1970 on the question of abor-
tion. The background and expertise trained in that election was called
upon ;is a resource by the States of Michigan and North Dakota that
were likewise faced with an abortion referendum in 1972.
Additionally, we have as one of our most active organizations the
New York State la'ght to life organization, which successfullv re-
peal the law in the State of New York, but because of the veto of
Governor Rockefeller over the legislature and the people of the State
of New York, their actions were nullified.
We are basically a volunteer, nondenominational. nonsectarian
organization. The actual membership and numbers reflected we feel
represent the majority of the people of this country. The effect of
over 60 percent of the people of the State of Michigan rejecting an
abortion statute proposed to them on their referendum ballot, the
statute being far narrower than the Supreme Court decision of 1972,
would indicate that such States as Michigan have collectively a con-
science which rejects the basic principle that we can in fact take life,
including the life of the unborn. This is likewise reflected by some
70 percent of the people of the State of North Dakota, and certainly
the substantial majority of the legislators representing the people of
New York.
The National Right to Life Committee has outlined three basic
purposes. One is to promote respect for the worth and dignity of all
human life, including the life of the unborn from the moment of
conception; second, to promote, encourage, and sponsor such amenda-
tory and statutory measures which will provide protection for human
life before and after birth, particularly for the defenseless, the in-
competent, the impaired and the incapacitated; and third, we intend
to engage in such activities as will assist in the accomplishment of
those purposes outlined above.
To place your deliberations on the human life amendment in con-
text, some historical evidence should be reviewed. The majority of the
people of this country have rejected the abortion mentality as a solu-
tion to any problems"that are facing this Nation. The National Right
to Life Committee is a coalition of these people whose one basic
effort is to demonstrate to this legislative body and to other people
of this country that the destruction of any life is not an acceptable
alternative in our constant quest to solve the human problems of this
Nation. It is the position of the National Right to Life Committee
to coordinate on a national level a movement that will properly re-
flect the genuine and since concern of the people of this Nation. Our
organization likewise will not accept the ultimate rejection of this
basic value judgment to protect all human life and will work un-
ceasingly until all such life is adequately protected. In 1970, over
470.000 people out of some 1 million casting their votes in the State
of Washington, rejected the right of a mother to take the life of her
unborn child. In November of 1972, the State of Michigan by over 60
percent rejected the same mentality while the State of North Dakota
reiected it by over 70 percent.
In November of 1972, the State of New York through its legislative
process struck down the New York abortion law only to be over-
powered by the veto of the then Governor of the State of New York,
Nolson Rockefeller. In 1971, some 30-State legislatures considered
lifting the abortion restrictions in their States, and the concept was
rejected by each and everv State.
In 1973" the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton,
struck down the will of the people of the States of Michigan. North
Dakota, and New York, and in fact, the people of this country, and
imposed upon all of us a legislative standard grounded on specific,
philosophical tenets. The Court's first holding stated that it would
not speculate as to when life begins, and it proceeded to legislate
in this area regardless of whether life was present or not. Addition-
allv, it indicated that the unborn child has no constitutional rights
to the law's protection at any stage of its gestation. It stripped the
protection of both the 5th and 14th amendments' "personhood" from
the unborn. It eliminated not only its right to life but also the equal
protection afforded it under the laws. While this subcommittee will
shortly be scheduling hearings to consider the legal aspects of the
right to life amendment, we are faced at the present time with the
stark reality that the U.S. Supreme Court in a 7 to 2 decision has re-
moved a class of human beings from the protection of the U.S. Con-
stitution. It has indicated that the potentiality of human life exist-
ing in the unborn is not afforded the protection of the personhood by
the U.S. Constitution.
It is not correct to say that the U.S. Supreme Court merely limited
when abortions could be obtained. Under its definition of health as
defined in the Doe v. Bolton case, it included "all factors, physical,
emotional, psychological, familial, and the women's age, relevant to
the well-being of the patient." The actual effect, then, of the U.S.
Supreme Court decision has been to ban any legislation that would
in any way protect the unborn from abortion.
This derision was reached with an utter disregard for the medical
facts that are known to us today. Most of these facts have been out-
lined to your committee and to your personally in the medical testi-
mony heard by this committee and presented by internationally re-
nowned physicians and scientists. Since the time of those hearings,
the reported studies of Dr. Motoyuki Hayashi of the Department
of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Toho University School of Medicine
in Tokyo, Japan, showing the actual fertilization within the human
female and the releases of Dr. Douglas C. A. Bevis of the University
of Leeds in England wherein he described the embryo transplants
after successful fertilization and incubation in test tubes, have made
it even more incumbent upon this committee and the Congress of the
United States to analyze carefully the statements of the U.S. Su-
preme Court as to whether or not we do in fact know when life be-
gins and in addition as to whether or not we have the means of pro-
tecting all life, even the earliest stages of the unborn. "While these
latest developments are new to the scientific field, science has always
acknowledged the above facts. "We need only to review the editorial
that is quoted so often out of "A New Ethic for Medicine's Society"
out of the California Medical Journal wherein they stated. "The very
considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize
abortion as anything but taking a human life", pointing out, I think,
clearly, that the only way that you can do it is again to resort to
semantic and gymnastics.
Our Nation has gone through a very soul-searching and conscious
wrenching episode wherein the people of this country and the legis-
lature as well has been involved in a review and a judgment of per-
sonal conduct which to many appeared to be devoid of moral and
ethical judgments. The American people as well as their elected repre-
sentatives fell the overwhelming force of social judgment and a value
tem which had not been met by certain elective and appointed
officials. Both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives were
rapidly drawing to the point where they would answer not only to
their own conscience, but also to the conscience of the public on a
grave moral issue.
We respectfully submit to this committee and to the U.S. Senate
and the House of Representatives that the right to life issue is of
such magnitude and deep personal and moral concern to the citizens
of this country that their reaction would be far stronger than to the
crisis the Nation has just passed through.
The question facing this Nation in addressing the abortion ques-
tion involves a true balancing between two innocent lives. The
mother, because she is pregnant, has not forfeited her right to life.
The child conceived has done nothing to dictate that its life should
be taken. Both deserve the utmost in competent medical care. There
may be cases where the material care to prevent the death of the
mother is more sophisticated than is presently available to an infant,
No action should be taken, however, to eliminate the life of the child,
and every precaution and medical measure must be used to assure
that neither life be sacrificed for the sake of. the other.
One may assume this position without losing sight or sensitivity
to the other sensitive issue involved. The difficulty of problem preg-
nancies must be faced, and consequently the National Right to Life
Committee does all in its power to support all programs, such as
birth right, pregnancy aid, that are designed to assist in problem
pregnancies. All such programs, however, which offer alternatives to
the taking of an innocent life rest on a basic definition of not only
the right to life but also the responsibility that each of us have to
assist those in need. The pragmatic or utilitarian approach to the
quality of life must not allow the implementation of a program that
would improve vour or my specific quality of life by destroying
another. It is difficult to imagine how a physician trained in the prac-
tice of medicine could make a statement to me recently that he "had
performed over 3,000 abortions without the loss of a single life." We
are less than intellectually honest if we deny the facts as presented
bv science todav that we are dealing with a life.
* It should also be clear to this committee that the human life amend-
ment presently being discussed is not an abortion statute. It will
hopefullv be designed to afford the constitutional protection of the
5th and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution to all human
beings, including their unborn offspring at every stage of their bio-
logical development irrespective of age; health, function or condition
of dependency. We have already seen the effect of defining the un-
born as a nonperson in the area of fetal experimentation, infanticide
and the accelerated interest in death with dignity legislation. Peo-
ple's moral sensitivity will ultimately be reflected in our legislative
deliberations.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision of January 22, 1973, has not
only not resolved the question but in fact has brought us to the
stage where the conscience of the American public, after a brief ex-
posure to the realities of the nonpersonhood of a segment of society
has become intolerable. The unborn has value because it is human
not because it is wanted, convenient, or meets some arbitrary standard
of physical or mental normalcy. Once the scientific facts are explained
to people, the solution proposed by the U.S. Supreme Court must be
sold on the merits illustrated by the newly elected president of the
Canadian Medical Association when she indicated that abortion was
a "necessary evil." It must be sold on necessity because it will never
be sold on the fact that it is not evil. It will never be morally
justifiable. We cannot for a moment lose sight of the fact that the
U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade stated that its judgment was
consistent with an attempt to "solve the profound problems of the
present day." We likewise cannot ignore the concurring opinion of
Justice Douglas when he stated that this "is only the beginning. The
State has interest to protect." If it is acceptable to the American
people that our system will legalize a selective, technologically ef-
ficient elimination of a segment of our society in an attempt to solve
any of our social ills, such action would be so violative of our ideals
of jurisprudence that the ultimate effect would be to destroy our
society. For this reason, the National Right to Life Committee most
strongly urges that this committee adopt and endorse a constitu-
tional amendment, and that that constitutional provision would se-
cure the following rights :
First, define the word "person" as used in the 5th and 14th amend-
ments as applicable to all human beings, including their unborn off-
spring at every stage of their biological development irrespective of
age, health, function, or condition of dependency.
Second, clarify that the definition of the word "person" as used in
the 5th and 14th amendments and defined in section 1 above, with
respect to due process and equal protection of the law, would thus
prohibit official Federal and State action designed to deprive the
unborn child of its life.
Third, to provide legal and constitutional rigidity to assure that
the life of the unborn child is protected in every reasonable effort
made to preserve the life of that child in light of all of the rapid
medical advances in the care of the unborn as well as providing the
constitutional protection to prevent the death of the mother.
It is within those principles that we support all legislation which
demonstrates that its intent and purpose is to secure these ultimate
goals. We encourage Congress, the State legislatures and all political,
moral, and religious leaders in this country to unite personally and
within their representative institutions to assure the attainment of
these goals.
T would like to conclude my presentation on a personal note. To
the members of this committee and your colleagues in the U.S. Sen-
ate we must realize that this is a very basic and personal responsi-
bility that you are accountable for as you deliberated on the human
life amendment. I have been subjected to questions and perhaps
criticism as all of you have when addressing myself to the question
<>f abortion. I speak to you now as a father of four children. While
I do not deny in any way or fake exception to the fact that the ques-
tion of alioit ion intimately affects the life of the woman, you and
1 must not become desensitized or intimidated by the fact that we are
men. We have a vital and God-given responsibility for the care of
all people in tliis Nation and in this world. The unborn child is not
;i pari of the mother's body but actually a new, distinct person carry-
ing witli it a very intimate part of the father's verv being. My re-
sponsibility and concern flows from the fact that the unborn child
from its very first inception requires that I as a parent and fellow
human being become highly visible and articulate in its defense. Its
mother would be wanting, not to aid in its defense, but certainly no
less than its father of the men of this country who would be accused
of refusing to accept their responsibility to protect the life of the
unborn. There is not a person in this country who can escape his own
personal responsibility in this issue by indicating that it is the re-
sponsibility of one sex or the other and that therefore I am not in-
volved. The real issue that faces you today is the protection of all
life. To be consistent and intellectually honest, we cannot address
this issue on any basis other than that we are all human beings, re-
sponsible and accountable to see that every other human being is pro-
tected by the Constitution of the United States.
Thank vou, and may God bless you in your deliberations.
I would like if I might at this time, Senator, to introduce Dr.
Mildred Jefferson.
Senatar Bath. Fine.
Mr. VanDerhoef. Dr. Jefferson is a general surgeon in Boston,
Mass., and assistant clinical professor of surgery at Boston Univer-
sity School of Medicine.
Dr. Jefferson is chairman of the board of directors of the National
Right to Life Committee. She also is vice president and a member of
the board of the Massachusetts Citizens for Life, president of the
Value of Life Committee of Massachusetts, and a member of the
board of directors of Americans United for Life.
Dr. Jefferson graduated surama cum laude from Texas College
in Tvler, Tex., received her M.S. degree from Tufts University,
Medford, Mass., and her M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Jefferson holds an honorary L.D. degree from Regis College in
western Massachusetts. Dr. Jefferson received her surgical training
at Boston City Hospital at Boston University Medical Center, Chil-
drens Hospital Medical Center, and Massachusetts General Hospital.
She is a diplomat of the American Board of Surgeons and a mem-
ber of the local, State, and national medical societies.
It is with great pleasure I would introduce Dr. Mildred Jefferson,
chairman of the board of the National Right to Life Committee.
Senator Bath. Dr. Jefferson, we are privileged to have you here.
STATEMENT OF DR. MILDRED JEFFERSON, CHAIRMAN OF THE
BOARD OF DIRECTORS, THE NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE COM-
MITTEE, INC.
Dr. Jefferson. Delighted to be here, and thank you, Mr. Chairman,
for the opportunity of appearing before this committee to speak in
support of the Human Life Amendment to the Constitution.
Because of my feeling that the physician has obligations of citizen-
ship beyond providing for the health care needs, I also participate
as a member of the U.S. National Commission on the Observance of
World Population Year, 1974.
Although it is a privilege for me to be here, I am somewhat sad-
dened that we must take the strong measures that we must to prevent
the destruction of lives of those who cannot defend themselves. Most
immediately, there are those unborn who would be considered social
8
embarrassment or economic burdens. The jeopardy already extends
to the newly born with severe mental or physical defects. The elderly
are being invited to die with dignity, and those who accept the invi-
tation may soon find themselves invited or perhaps urged to choose
to die. If a society can develop tolerance for destroying lives at the
beginning and the end. why not apply the methods to eliminate the
deformed, defective, incapable, the incompetent, or the inconvenient
anywhere along the scale? If the destruction of life is permissible for
social and economic reasons, why not for political reasons?
It is reasonable to apply the extermination principle of social
change to that segment of the population that cannot fight back, can-
not riot in the streets and of course, cannot vote. Getting rid of babies
before they can be born in their own time can be arranged so very
readily with our modern medical technology. Separating the word
"abortion" from the fact of what abortion does allow it to be pro-
moted as a welcome escape from a probles without considering the
threat of harm in the promise of the relief.
The acting of killing an unborn child involves complex medical,
moral, and legal issues. On January 22, 1973, the majority of the
Supreme Court of the United States undertook to reduce them to
a simple medical problem by handing down decisions on abortion
which left the abortion decision to be a private matter between a
woman and a doctor, subject to the doctor's medical judgment. The
Court acted in the tradition of the 19th century Court that decided
to settle the problem of slavery by declaring one ensloved Dred Scott
to be "property" therefore not a person and not entitled to the pro-
tection of citizenship. The 20th century Court may have intended to
create social revolution with its abortion rulings. If so, the Court
succeeded in turning the whoel of social progress a full turn back-
ward.
By joining the strong team of the woman and the doctor against
the unborn child, the High Court destroyed a principle of justice
in our legal system which guaranteed some balance for the weak in
'•(.nil id with the strong by joining with the weak against the strong.
By requiring the unborn child to escape an extermination team of the
mother and doctor for 6 months before having chance of protection
by the State, the High Court destroyed fairness in the application
of our laws. By allowing the State to protect the life that Mr. Justice
Blackmun called potential in the last 3 months before birth only if
it chooses, means that the Court did not guarantee protection for the
life of that child at any point before birth or after if the State
should choose not to protect that life. And that opens the jeopardy
to us all.
The Supreme Court destroyed the foundations of democracy in the
abortion decisions by creating three categories of citizenship. The
doctor and pregnant woman were elevated to the rank of super-
citizens with the private right to kill by contract. Man. the father of
i lie child, was reduced to the level of subcitizen with no defined right
to proteei the life of his unborn child. The unborn child was declared
nonperson in the eyes of the law. and therefore, noncitizen only to
allow hisor her life to be taken.
The highest Court of our land undermined respect for the medical
profession by granting the doctor a nearly unlimited license to kill
the unborn child. The majority opinion of the Court disparaged the
hippocratic oath as a guiding principle of medical conduct. Seven
justices of the Court undertook to practice medicine without a license
by dictating what should comprise medical judgment in the abortion
decision. Without indicating when life began, the Court established
a timetable for allowing willful end of that life. Most cruelly, the
Court introduced the concept of viability, "potentially able to sur-
vive outside the mother's womb" as a price to pay for continued life.
It places the immature, premature survivor of abortion in the cir-
cumstance of having to prove the ability to live before being given
the support system that would help sustain its life. As a physician
I cannot accept that because it is not a sound or reasonable test. It
also disturbs me that those physicians who have been paid to see
that the mother leaves the facility with empty arms have been the
ones to try to establish the criteria for viability.
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decisions on abortion
we have seen increased efforts to popularize or make acceptable the
extermination procedures of the radical social medicine. The talk-
master on a late night Boston radio program feels obliged to offer
abortion counseling to a 14-year-old caller who thinks she is preg-
nant and has not told her parents. Specialists at a famous teaching
center feel obliged to report in The New England Journal of Medi-
cine allowing 43 infants with severe deformities to die. Legislators in
the States of Florida and Massachusetts, among others, introduced
passive euthanasia bills which would give the permission which doc-
tors do not really need to withhold extraordinary means of prolong-
ing life when death appears inevitable.
Senator Bath. Pardon me, Doctor, by what definition is that kind
of statute described as a euthanasia statute?
Dr. Jefferson. It is a passive euthanasia statute in the sense that
it executes an instrument which allows or directs that extraordinary
means bo withheld. No doctor using sound medical judgment needs
such direction, but with the instrument executed, there is also the
provision of what happens when the person is no longer competent
to act ? It is very simple then to use this to ease the person along, so
it becomes very simple to convert it from a passive euthanasia bill
to an active one.
Senator Bath. We are playing with words, and I do not want to
get into a prolonged argument on this. I think the question of abor-
tion is a very critical matter and I think it is complicated signifi-
cantly when we try to conjure up something entirely different such
as euthanasia. If there had been a euthanasia statute passed or even
proceeded significantly through a legislative body, I would like to
know about it. But a statute described as a passive euthanasia statute
is not the same thing as euthanasia by any means. I think that sort
of gets us off on the wrong road, does it not? We have got enough
problem here confining it to where we are.
Dr. Jefferson. I am stating the things that have taken place. If
one reads the letter from the doctor who was a legislator in Florida
who introduced the bill, who mentioned the 5 years in the building
for the bill he did introduce, and why he felt that the climate was
then suitable for introducing that legislation. That was written in
a letter
10
Senator Bath. Maybe I misunderstood you. I thought you said it
had passed.
Dr. Jefferson. No, no ; introduced. The one in Florida was intro-
duced first. The one in Massachusetts was introduced in this session
of the legislature.
Senator Bath. Is the one in Florida similar to the Florida statute
when it was passed?
Dr. Jefferson. It was entirely different when passed out of com-
mittee, but there were no changes in the ones that — the one in Mas-
sachusetts was introduced which essentially followed the form of the
living will.
Senator Bath. In other words, if a person like the former Senator
Morse, wants to turn off the kidney machine, he has a right to say
turn off the kidney machine.
Dr. Jefferson. He has a right to direct, but the doctor does not
need that in terms of the law or an instrument to be executed. If the
physician is following the case carefully, the sound medical judg-
ment should let him know when it is not reasonable to use the ex-
traordinary means.
Senator Bath. Well, suppose the patient disagrees with the doctors
and says look, I'm tired of you poking me with that needle. Would
you just stop it. Then do you as a physician, think a patient has a
right to ask the doctor to do that or not ?
Dr. Jefferson. The patient has every right to ask, but the doctor
must act within that doctor's sound medical judgment, and that doc-
tor still
Senator Bath. Was that answer yes or no ?
Dr. Jefferson. I cannot answer that yes or no because the doctor
still has to act within the provisions that control his action in the
hospital.
Senator Bath. Let us take the kidney problem as specifically,
painfully and unfortunately faced by our former colleague Wayne
Morse.
Dr. Jefferson. Yes.
Senator Bath. Wayne Morse happened to be somebody everybody
knows. Suppose Jack Jones out here that nobody ever heard of comes
to yon and savs, "Look, I do not want to take that treatment any-
more, Doctor."
Dr. Jkfff.rson. I would have to turn Jack Jones over to a doctor
who would allow a patient to dictate his treatment. You see, I come
from ;i rather different medical background. I was part of the first
ten in to work on the kidney transplantation so that I look upon
kidney failure in a different way. I also handle the relationship of
a patient in a different way. I have never had a patient ask to re-
fuse treatment that was considered necessary within my medical
judgment, so that if T felt, understanding and meeting the patient's
sense, that lie wanted to direct his treatment, I would feel obliged
to find that patient another doctor.
Senator Bath. Then the answer you would give to my question is
"no," you would not continue to serve as a physician to someone who
wants to stop receiving certain treatment and let nature take its
• ourse.
11
Dr. Jefferson. That is true, when I feel that best medical judg-
ment indicates that there is a positive chance for the treatment. You
do not just treat because you have the things there available.
Senator Bath. All right, thank you.
As I say, I can accept the argument of euthanasia as a very good
signal to us to be careful that we do not follow the tragic experience
of Nazi Germany. But I must say I have much greater faith, than
apparently you and some others do, in the capacity of the people
of this country to root out euthanasia. I think it is possible to dis-
tinguish the difference between death with dignity and euthanasia.
I have heard death with dignity described as letting someone make
his or her determination as to what kind of treatment and how long
it should be prolonged, as long as they are within command of their
capacities.
Dr. Jefferson. I understand your view, but I see it obviously from
a different circumstance. I know that in medicine we cannot be sure
that every patient is going to get reasonable care. I know that things
that are considered extraordinary today were not — or will not be
considered extraordinary within 2 or 3 years. I know some things
that were considered extraordinary in 1965 that are perfectly ordi-
nary and reasonable treatment now. I am not willing at this point
to allow the members of my profession to step back from doing
what is reasonable and necessary because I know already there are
few, very few, but still a few who will not know what is necessary
at the time.
So that when people mention death with dignity to me, I know
in the first place that dignity is a quality of the living not of dying,
and when people see this, often they have not seen many people die.
I have been watching people die since I was a child, when I used
to visit them to see the souls leave, and there was no dignity in dying
from neglect, from strangling on one's own secretions, from trying
very hard to breathe, or from feeling so dry that the person is gasp-
ing^ But the doctor who is following the patient well, even in the
most hopeless of circumstances, can help the patient die comfortably
and more easily, but still within a reasonable ethical limit, and it is
just that unfortunately slogans are appealing, but people often do not
look far enough behind the slogans.
Senator Bath. I am certainly looking behind the slogans. I do
not like to see anybody gasping or strangling on their own liquids
either, but we are talking about a relatively few people, that ever
have to face that decision. Unfortunately some of them do, and I,
for one, would not want to impose some sort of a rule by constitu-
tional amendment or statute limiting their right to control the
amount of treatment received. If I were a legislator I would not
want to say to those relatively few people, we are going to take vour
right to determine how you are going to go to your own Maker, as long
as vou do not take it yourself.
Dr. Jefferson. That is quite all right. Thank you.
Repeatedly, the High Court has refused to review the scientific
evidence of the life of the unborn in cases, for example, like those
from Connecticut and Rhode Island, the evidence which was so well
presented to you in this hearing on May 7 by Dr. Albert "William
12
Liley of New Zealand, who is perhaps the father of that specialty
studying the child before birth known as perinatology, and Professor
Jerome Lejeune of France, who is a world-reknowned geneticist, and
one who predicts that perhaps the answer or management of mon-
golism will be within this century.
The court has denied the father, an unwed father in Florida, any
right to protect the right of his child, and in Massachusetts an
estranged father was denied the right to save the life of his child
during 19 weeks within its mothers womb. The Supreme Court de-
cisions are used as an excuse for some doctors to use no medical
judgment in the, abortion decision, but to serve simply as medical
technicians performing abortion on demand. Roe v. Wade has be-
come the principal device for promoting abortion in the United
States. The decisions protecting abortion privacy are used to force
public support of abortion practice by the use of tax moneys through
medicaid and insurance payments which do not allow subscribers to
avoid paying for the abortions that others would have. The poor
woman who has not yet been guaranteed access to the health care
delivery system can now, with fair readiness at least, be given access
to getting rid of her unborn child.
We also see the threat to the lives and health of women who are
subjected to unmonitored operation circumstances. As the State may
not interfere in the abortion decision in the first 3 months, women
are subjected to all of the risks that were supposedly involved in the
so-called illegal abortion practices. They are subjected to operations
at the hands of those who do not have to subject themselves to the
scrutiny of peer review, credentials review, observation of their
skills, the hygiene of safety of the physical plant, the kinds of re-
sults that their operations have produced, or whether or not that
operator has the ability to handle the complications that would arise
from the procedure.
It is our ri.o-ht as citizens in a free republic to use everv democratic
means possible to overturn a decision which we consider morally,
medically, and legally wrong.
Quo democratic means is using the political process to join those
of like mind to accomplish legislative change. Throughout the
country, many people from all walks of life, social conditions, re-
ligions or no formal belief, political parties or no partisan affiliation
are joining the effort to defend the sancity-of-life ethnic. Collectively,
this is known as the right-to-life movement. There are at least 1,000
right-to-life organizations recorded as well as an uncounted addi-
tional number of those who function as ad hoc committees to respond
to many abortion promotions which they observe.
The National Right To Life Committee is an effort to provide
an organizational arm through which various State groups can con-
centrate effectiveness here in Washington.
The organizations are as diverse as the people who comprise them,
but they are distinguished by having political effectiveness within
the States. These are by no means all, but among these are the pio-
neer groups of those from New York, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri
Washington State. California. Kentucky, and the city of Cincinnati
with the most dramatic election victories against abortion on demand
13
in the fall before the Supreme Court decision in Michigan and North
Dakota. In addition to effectiveness, some of the groups are outstand-
ing for their sheer size, like Pennsylvanians for Human Life with a
membership in excess of 100,000. Gaining recognition for effectiveness
and rapid growth in Massachusetts Citizens For Life with a member-
ship in excess of about 60,000 in less than the 2 years it has been in
existence, nad the numbers are growing.
We are committed to achieving an amendment to the Constitu-
tion which will protect human life from its beginning to its natural
end. With the necessity for ratification of such an amendment and
securing as well as defending enabling legislation within the States,
right-to-life organizations will become a permanent part of the po-
litical scene.
We have heard the objections to the idea of a constitutional amend-
ment, a human life amendment, but these sound hollow when they
are given by those who voted for the Equal Rights amendment. We
cannot consider seriously the obections based on the falsehood that
the unborn child is not alive before birth, is somehow other than
human, or is a part of the mother's body when modern science has
demonstrated exactly what the biological facts are. We are not re-
sponsive to the philosophic view that holds that to be unwanted is
to be unwantable and therefore expendable. We are dismayed by
the dishonesty in the suggestion that a pregnant woman has "free-
dom of choice" in the outcome of the pregnancy. She can become
unpregnant in only two ways: By giving birth to a living child, or
unfortunately sometimes to a stillborn or delivering a dead one by
abortion. We know that the Constitution as it is or even as amended
would not interfere with a physician practicing the medicine of sal-
vage and healing.
Our objective is to defend the dream of America as a democracy
with liberty and justice for all, and not an elitist preserve where
only the perfect, the privileged, or the planned have the right to
live.
Senator Bath. Thank you, Doctor, and Mr. VanDerhoef. Doctor,
you brought very unique credentials to this discussion, and I ap-
preciate both of your testimonies. We all have more places to be than
we can be right now. There is a vote going on, and we are going
to have to leave shortly, and Senator Fong has an important ap-
propriations conference that he is going to have to participate in.
Otherwise he would be here. Do you care to ask any questions
before we recess?
Senator Fong. No ; I have no questions. But we do have the vote.
Senator Bath. Doctor, you mentioned the ERA. Do you support
that, or did you support that?
Dr. Jefferson. I am in favor of equal rights for all, but if one
wants to look at it in a technical way, there should have been no
necessity for indeed the Constitution should provide for all.
There have been various Supreme Court decisions upholding this
principle of equal rights for all. Various States have enacted legis-
lation, but still it was found necessary by some to underline this
provision to make sure that it was possible, and it is for that reason
that we found it necessary to underline what should be an understood
provision in the interpretation of the Constitution.
14
But somehow there is a gap between the idealization and what
actually happens, and as it should not have been necessary to pass
an equal rights amendment, it should not be necessary to look for
protection of lives, but unfortunately it is.
Senator Bath. I am just trying to find out how you feel. Is the
answer yes or no? Do you support the equal rights amendment?
Dr. Jefferson. I do not understand.
Senator Bath. Do you support the equal rights amendment that
is now before the State legislatures ? I think about 33 have ratified it.
Dr. Jefferson. Massachusetts has already, sir, so my stand is moot.
Senator Bath. Well, you refer to it in sort of a negative aspect.
Do you support it or not?
Dr. Jefferson. I support the principle. As for the amendment as
such, I do not feel it necessary in the face of the favorable States'
laws as well as the Supreme Court decisions. I would not object to it.
Senator Bath. Could you cite me one Supreme Court decision that
brought women under due process of the 14th amendment?
Dr. Jefferson. I did not hear the first part of that.
Senator Bath. I do not know one Supreme Court decision that
actually brought women as a class of Americans under the equal
protection and due process clauses.
If you are familiar with one I would be glad to know it.
Dr. Jefferson. I did not consider that they were excluded, since
any of the
Senator Bath. Well, that is the way the Supreme Court has looked
at them now for 100 and some years, and that is why it was neces-
sary to pass the amendment. You do not support the equal rights
amendment ?
Dr. Jefferson. No, I did not say that. I said I did not see that the
same necessity was — but I thought that for those, who, I have heard
objections to the human life amendment, have usually said that they
regarded the document as something that should not be modified
or approached lightly and we agree with that.
But the same people who have offered that argument for not sup-
porting at this time the human life amendment have indeed sup-
ported the equal rights amendment.
Senator Bath. You know we have all sorts of people. I do not
think we ought to judge a position legislatively because a few peo-
ple may assume philosophies or arguments on an issue that we dis-
agree with.
I think it is totally possible to be for the equal rights amendment
and still be very concerned about abortion, but apparently you do
not.
Dr. Jefferson. I see it a different way. I simply cannot under-
stand.
Senator Bath. I am going to have to vote. I am not going to
change your mind at all.
Dr. Jefferson. I cannot see wanting rights to myself that I would
not extend to my child, my husband, mv friends. That is the prin-
ciple.
Senator Bath. Unfortunately, if you look at the pay scale of
women, if you look at the inability to get women emploved in public
institutions at an equal rate, if you look at the lack of 'equal justice
15
before the law in many States, women have not been treated equally.
I'd think it was important to give other women who have not been
quite as fortunate as you to have a chance to have equal rights, and
I do not think that is inconsistent with being very concerned about
abortion, but I accept your judgment.
I do not certainly deny you that.
Dr. Jefferson. I did not say that I have had equal rights but I do
not let the effort show.
Senator Bath. I have heard Mrs. Chisholm say, a very distin-
guished black legislator, that she found that she was discriminated
against to a much greater degree because she happened to be a woman
than because she happened to be black, that may not be your ex-
perience. But we did pass the amendment and it is out before the
States for ratification. You say Massachusetts has ratified it, so really
it is not that important.
I will be right back.
[A brief recess was taken.]
Senator Bath. Could we reconvene our session, please?
Mr. VanDerhoef, Dr. Jefferson, I apologize for the interruption
here.
Dr. Jefferson. We understand.
Senator Bath. I found when I got over there there was not one
vote, but two; so I stayed long enough to cast the second one, and
now we are back.
Both of you, I think, make very eloquent statements supporting
the cause that brings you here. Do either one of you care to express
the National Right to Life Committee's position on which of the
two amendments you would prefer; the Helms amendment or the
Buckley amendment?
Mr. VanDerhoef. I would address myself, on behalf of the Right
to Life Committee, and I am sure Dr. Jefferson will, too. I think at
this point we have seen a development of thought since the Supreme
Court decision 1972 that requires, I think, a very close analysis, and
will be expanded even further in the hearings in front of this com-
mittee on the legal aspects.
As a policy statement, we support all of the right to life amend-
ments that will in any way alter or assist in overcoming the Supreme
Court decision. We do feel, though, that in the legislative history
that is being prepared at the present time, we would not wish to be
precluded from continual input and assistance to this committee in
reaching the ultimate goals that I outlined in my statement; and
that is that the word person in fact be defined to include the unborn.
Also, that we carefully analyze the medical aspects, so that legally
we do not become involved where we have eliminated procedures that
are rapidly unfolding. Our concern is, for instance, if they have
transplanted the developing human being from test tube incubation
into the mother, is there any reason why we likewise do not remove
it?
So the amendment, I think, as it comes out of this committee,
would of necessity involve perhaps some additional modification of
all of the amendments or any of the amendments which are pending,
so we support all of those. We would ask, however, to be consulted,
and would offer our assistance in drafting, ultimately, the best
amendment that will afford protection.
16
Senator Bayh. What kind of modifications could you anticipate?
Mr. VanDerhoef. I think there are two areas that we have talked
about that have come to life in the last 2 months, and one of them is
a word, and I think it should be eliminated; an exception clause. I
do not think we are talking about an exception as such. We are ta ^"
ing about a balancing between two lives, where the ultimate obli-
gation and constitutional protection is afforded to both parties; and
this again, then, if we aer talking about an exception clause in the
debate between the amendments presently pending, make a good deal
of this. And I think, legally, we will hope to participate, and will
participate, in the hearings on the legal matter, and define further.
The word execption, I think, has to be eliminated. We are not talk-
ing about an exception, because there is no exception where we would
want to destroy the life of the mother or destroy the life of the
child. So I think that is one area that specifically needs additional
modification over the amendments that are presently pending; at
least, consideration to be sure that the amendments pending do, in
fact, answer that question.
Senator Bath. Does the National Right to Life Committee sup-
port an amendment that permits the mother, father, and doctor to
make a decision that there shall be an abortion performed, if it is
necessary to save the life of the mother?
Mr. VanDerhoef. In light of the decision being made, likewise,
to save the life of the child, not to the expense of the child, but to
the life of the child as well; and there is, as I mentioned in my re-
marks, there are certain cases today in which the medical science has
not achieved the sophistication to preserve that life. But we do not
support an amendment that would allow the exclusion of those pro-
cedures that will, in fact, protect the life; and I think that is where
the word exception becomes very dangerous — to say that a mother,
father, and doctor have the right to determine that that child's life
will be taken, when in fact that child's life could be saved. To pre-
vent the death of the child as well as the death of the mother is our
ultimate goal.
Dr. Jefferson. The diversity of this group obviously indicates
that I think it would not be possible for anyone to write an amend-
ment that every single person in the country would support. The
Legal Advisory Committee of the National Right to Life Committee
came up with the drafting of the amendment, that was introduced
by— as I think it is identified now — as the Derwinski amendment, but
it is the one that came out of the Legal Advisory Committee of the
National Right to Life Committee. That one differs from the others
in the sense that the protection of life is provided complete — more
of a constitutional protection. But it also restores the States rights to
act in that balancing of the lives, so that the States actions could be
whatever the groups within the States did indeed determine, so that
if had considerable support.
But T think the thing most people recognize is that an amendment
as introduced is rarely the form that it comes out finally, so that we
have at least enough, T think, to approach what any person who sup-
ports the human lifo amendment would like to work with.
Senator Bath. The chairman of this committee, as one of 100
Members of the Senate, I am not permitted the luxury of dealing
17
with broad generalities. That is why I tried to pin you down on the
equal rights amendment, We either have to vote yes or no. We can-
not say, generally, we are for the principles that sound nice. You
vote yes or no, but you are not in that position yet where you want
to say, this is the best proposal. I mean, you point out that there
are certain questions that remain.
Mr. VanDerhoef. Yes. I think the position will become clear, both
to the committee and certainly in its final form, as we have the hear-
ings on the legal ramifications of exact wording. And for that rea-
son, I think that those hearings are essential before the final draft,
and I am sure that this committee would be able to drum
Senator Bath. Well, I certainly hope you will feel free to com-
municate with us in the future, as you have in the past.
Are there any other areas where you might find some flexibility
relative to the competing lives— for example, in the case of rape, in-
cest, genetic congenital disease of certain types? Is there any flexi-
bility there?
Mr. VanDerhoef. Again, I think we are talking about ultimately
resolving the problem of two innocent lives, and none of those, as I
see, would be a defect in the rights of the unborn that would warrant
its destruction. Certainly, as far as the medical criteria for deformity
and this type of thing, Dr. Jefferson addressed herself to that. But
I think the specific items that you mentioned, none of them would
constitute, under due process or equal protection of either the 5th or
14th amendments, any reason to take the life of the unborn child.
And for that reason, we would hope that the committee would, in its
draft, to gain support from this Nation, that it protect both of those
lives. If, in fact, in the— again, I hate to use the word— an execption
is drawn someplace, it would have to be drawn in the light of the
fact that, for some reason, due process and equal protection did not
apply to the unborn.
Senator Bath. Let me express the concern in other terms. We have
not yet explored the legal ramifications by which I think you could
perhaps draw a due process decision where you have consenting
adults participating in the exception. We have one problem in that
situation ; if you have a woman who is not voluntarily participating
in those acts/but is forced into a situation that leads to an exception,
the exception is forced upon here. Now, does that give any running
room in the rape situation, as far as you are concerned ?
Mr. VanDerhoef. I do not believe it does answer the—; —
Senator Bath. In the case of a minor child, a minor girl?
Mr. VanDerhoef. Tragic as those situations are — and again, as
I mentioned, we do not lose our sensitivities to them — we must hope for
a solution then, and I find it difficult to imagine that the solution
would be to destroy the innocent life because of the circumstances
that begot that child. So I think again, there are other ways, I would
think, of solving this; and again, based on the fact that we are talk-
ing here, constitutionally, of what has that child, the distinct, con-
ceived child, clone to warrant the forfeiture of its life?
And so, I think the difficulty is that the circumstances that have
iust been described by you deal with the mother, and that certainly
is a very vital part that must be considered. Does it override, how-
18
ever, the fact that as a result of that, we now have a second life ? Be-
cause I think tragedies happen in a family that are every bit as
tragic to the mother and to her well-being — perhaps after the child
is born, and we do not afford that. So again, it gets back to the very
basic question ; has that child, who now has a separate existence, for-
feited that because of some act of the mother, or some act of a third
party to her mother? And I do not think it can be resolved by saying
it is a forfeiting of a constitutional right.
Senator Bayh. You have four children. Do you feel that same
way if it was one of your daughters?
Mr. VanDerhoef. I do.
Dr. Jefferson. There are some other considerations, I think, that
are often overlooked in this kind of discussion. As a physician, I am
well aware of the fact that we like to have safeguards, and we also
like to have escape hatches. "We like to have that little bit of extra
protection. But I think as physicians we must face up to what medi-
cine is in 1974, and what that practice of medicine is.
When one deals with the matter of rape and incest and so on, we
must look a little bit more carefully, as well as the genetic screening
that you mentioned, of what we are dealing with. Rape, for example —
often, in the discussions, we do not have adequate review of just
what the pregnancy complication of rape is. Pregnancy is not the
commonest complication of rape; veneral disease and injuries are.
Obviously, in the one young woman who did become pregnant as a
result of rape, it is a problem. But even with that, one has to look
a little bit more closely at the woman involved. A first pregnancy
may be the only pregnancy. It may not be that ending the pregnancy
is best for that particular young woman or girl. The matter of rape
is a difficult scene. It creates psychological scars. You cannot erase
the fact of the rape or punish the rapist by aborting a pregnancy
that develops. However, you may seriously handicap this woman's
reproductive future if she is very young, and if that is her first preg-
nancy that is interrupted.
I think one thing is that I do not look upon pregnancy as quite
the burden as some other people may. Even though I have not been
pregnant, I have been at least watching pregnant people all of my
life, and I just do not see it as quite this great, awful burden that
some people seem to see.
Senator Bath. Well, then, it is extremely difficult for some of us
who have not been raped to share that experience with somebody
who has.
Dr. Jefferson. I have known people who have. I have known many
people in many circumstances. I also grew up watching 12, 13 and
L4-year-old girls going through pregnancies delivered by midwives,
so that the matter of the attitude toward the pregnancy and the rape
situation are things which require very careful handling, and there is
a way of glossing over what is happening to the young woman in the
rape situation when the focus is on abortion — to get rid of the conse-
quences of the rape — and that social circumstance — we ignore doing
something about the rapist, and with the focus on the young woman,
we simply do not do the tilings necessary.
For example, the families who know that they have a sociopath —
this is particularly a concern in the matter of incest, because often
19
the minor child who is raped or has been raped by some member of
the family— so that there is a good deal in that situation which is
glossed over when the focus is on what happens to the pregnancy.
There is also the matter that we should look more closely into the
matter of incest. What is wrong with it? What is wrong with the
pregnancy? Why does it mean automatic ending of pregnancy that
results from incest % Much of the things said about the children that
develop from incest are not borne out in the actual observations of
the people. If we look at an experience like that of Sweden, that
for some reason seems to have an especially high incidence of incest,
the one that suffers in it is not usually the woman, the girl. It is
usually the father who ends up in some kind of mental institution,
and of the ones that have been followed, the young women seem not
to have particular psychological problems after; and those followed
have made successful marriages.
So that we have to look, I think, beyond what some of our set
ideas are regarding these two areas. They are quite emotional in
terms of the person who does not respond to the matter of a young
woman pregnant as a result of rape or incest. But on the other hand,
I think we need to look a little bit more as to whether or not ending
the pregnancy is going to be in the best interest of that young
woman; and the focus on it from the legislative area tends to push
the matter of clearing out the complication to the detriment, some-
times, of young women involved. The matter of the genetic screening
and the use of the diagnostic measures in a search-and-destroy man-
ner bring up serious questions.
From a medical point of view, I have to look closely into the pro-
cedures themselves. Amniocentesis, for example, a procedure which
requires exceptional skill for its use, a procedure which has its own
risks, as a careful review of the complications of the procedure would
turn up; but there is also another matter that I, as a physician
watching what we do, must think of, and that is the matter that the
increasing tendency of centers who do this to do the procedure with
the assurance that the parents will agree to abortion if a defective
child is found.
Now, ideally, we know that they are concerned about the family
unit and the defective child. But on the other hand, we have to look
at the very practical matter that if the operator doing the test has
had something happen — maybe a few eye cells or a few other cells
that should not have been removed have been removed. It is very
simple to abort the child and avoid the malpractice case later. Those
are also concerns that enter into this matter, which make the matter
of genetic screening not quite the ideal that one may mention. But
it also carries in the overlay, the underlying idea, that we have sort
of flirted towards before. You mentioned the Nazi experience. The
search-and-destroy mission is a preNazi attitude; the attitude of re-
moving the burden from some society happened before the Nazis
came to power in fact, I think it was in the 1920's, in Leipzig, a book
was written by Hucke and Binding with a very awkward title which,
translated into English, is something like On the Release of the De-
struction of Live Devoid of Value. The ideas represented in that
book were that there are some lives which are simply worthless. They
are burdens to society. There should be no penalty for removing these
20
burdens from society. Doctors are in the best position for removing
such burdens from society, so doctors should suffer no penalty for
removing such burdens — and German medicine took this to heart ;
not the quacks, but the great professors. And long before Hitler came
to power, they had undertaken to help remove the burdens from
German society.
Many of my fellow physicians are quite interested in the new social
medicine, and the new social medicine does indeed take a very ag-
gressive attitude in removing such burdens of society. The immediate
target is the Mongoloid child, because there is a way of determining
and diagnosing it. There is the Tay-Sachs child, the Tay-Sachs child
who is not visibly defective at the time it is born, and may even be
at the early stages an unusual child, unusual in every physical as-
pects, until the disease effect catches up, and then the deterioration
and death. But it is to prevent what happens later that the child is
destroyed at that point. But I have not seen a single paper in the
American literature that calls attention to the fact that in a long
series of cases from Europe, for example, and England, that when
first pregnancies are interrupted by abortion, there is an incidence
of birth defects in subsequent children born of such women which is
higher than the incidence of such genetic defects in the population.
So that we do not know that in medicine, that we are creating a
reasonable circumstance. We can say that perhaps it is better to have
deformed hips than it is to have Tay-Sachs Disease or have a Mongo-
loid child. But that is simply a value judgment. But I think we tend
to emphasize a little too much the emotional aspects that my pro-
fession presents in wanting the safeguards or the escape hatch when
someone is suggesting that the profession of medicine may remember
the hippocratic tradition, which simply would not accept the kind of
utilitarian uses that the new social medicine requires.
Senator Bath. Thank you very much. I appreciate both of you
taking the time and trouble to be here with us, and we will continue
to look for your thoughts as we pursue our study here. Thank you.
Mr. VanDerhoef. Thank you.
, Senator Bath. Our next witness is Pat Goltz of the Feminists for
Life.
Ms. Goltz. I would like to yield the floor to Randy Engel, if I
may. She has another appointment.
Senator Bath. All right. That will be fine.
Ms. Engel. Senator Bayh, this afternoon there are IUD hearings
going on in the Food and Drug Administration, so I am scheduled
to do that later on this afternoon.
Senator Bath. Randy Engel, Director of U.S. Coalition for Life,
we are glad to have you here.
STATEMENT OF RANDY ENGEL, DIRECTOR, U.S. COALITION FOR
LIFE
Ms. Engel. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. I am Randy Engel, Na-
tional Director of the U.S. Coalition for Life. We are basically an
internationa] research center and clearinghouse with a specialtv in
Federal antilife programs both within the Department of HEW
which would be domestic programs as well as for the Agency for
International Development being foreign life programs.
21
I thank you for your invitation to appear before the subcommittee
today in order that I might express the views of the coalition, its
distinguished national and international board of advisors, some of
whom have already testified at earlier hearings by this subcommittee,
including Sir William Liley, KCMG, and those opinions of the thou-
sands of grassroots people whom we have had the honor of serving
on a day-to-day basis since the coalition opened its office almost 2
years ago.
Mr. Chairman, I would request at this time that my testimony in
full, along with all attachments, be entered into the record? Is this
satisfactory?
Senator Bayh. Without objection it will be ordered.
[The full statement of Ms. Engel follows.]
22
TESTIMONY ON THE HUMAN LIFE AMENDMENT
BEFORE THE
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
SENATOR BIRCH BAYH , CHAIRMAN
AUGUST 21, 1974
Presented By:
RANDY ENGEL
NATIONAL DIRECTOR
UNITED STATES COALITION FOR LIFE
EXPORT , PENNSYLVANIA
23
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Sub-Committee:
I am Randy Engel, National Director of the United States
Coalition for Life, an international research center and clearing-
house specializing in domestic federal anti-life programs within
the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the Agency for
International Development. Thank you for your invitation to appear
before the sub-committee today in order that I may express the
views of the Coalition, its distinguished national and international
board of advisors, some of whom have already testified at earlier
Senate hearings on the Human Life Amendment, and that of thousands
of grassroots people whom we have had the honor of serving on a day
to day basis since the Coalition opened its offices almost two years
ago.
Mr. Chairman, about four months ago, the Coalition filed with
your office, the transcript of a speech made by Louise Tyrer , M.D. ,
Family Planning Division of the American College of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists, before the Association of Planned Parenthood
Physicians' 12th Annual Meeting, Memphis, Tennessee on Tuesday,
April 16, 1974, on the status of the various Human Life Amendments
to the Constitution of the United States. (Attachment A)
According to Dr. Tyrer ' s assessment of the Congressional scene
there are two basic approaches. One - a "state's rights" approach
which would return the power of lawmaking in the area of abortion
to the individual States. The second - which would guarantee the
full protection of the law to the unborn child from the moment of
fertilization.
The "State's rights" approach she states, and correctly so,
is unacceptable to the majority of Pro-Life people yet very attrac-
tive to the legislators because " it sought of takes the ones off
their backs from making any decisions."
The remainder of her talk stresses the necessity of stalling
the hearings of this sub-committee by having Planned Parenthood
physicians flood the sub-committee with requests to testify. This,
Dr. Tyrer suggests would be politically expedient and politically
NECESSARY for you Mr. Chairman, in order to keep the amendments
bottled up in sub-committee until you had gone through the election
process in the Fall.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I have no desire to embarass you in any
manner. Not because I fell Dr. Tyrer was incorrect in her judgment
of the political realities of the Senate and House Committees dealing
with the abortion issue or her assessment that stalling these sub-
committee hearings by dragging them out month by month would be
politically expedient for you and others who might prefer not to
have a roll call vote on a Human Life Amendment before election time.
But rather, because with few exceptions, almost every Senator
and Representative in Congress would like nothing better than to get
rid of the abortion issue tomorrow, if not before, or at least dump
the matter back into the lap of the State legislatures.
24
This is not our affair - they say.
The massive slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent
unborn children is not a federal matter - they say.
We are not responsible for the Supreme Court decision of
January 22, 1972 which is now the law of the land - they say.
Well, I am here Mr. Chairman to tell you and every other
Senator and Congressman that like it or not - Abortion IS your
affair. That the massive slaughter of unborn children in this
country I_S a proper matter of federal concern. Moreover that this
Congress IS_ directly responsible for the almost inevitable Supreme
Court decision which stripped unborn children of their inalienable
right to life.
Congress IjS responsible because over the last ten years it has
permitted an anti-life philosophy and anti-life programs and policies
to become matters of NATIONAL POLICY , promoted and supported by tax
dollars.
It is the Federal Government - at all levels - Executive,
Legislative and Judicial branches - which has posed the greatest
threat to unborn children in recent years.
The Executive Branch because it has failed to correct the
anti-life abuses primarily within the bureaucracies of HEW and AID
and has permitted key anti-life leaders such as Dr. Louis Hellman
the Office of Population Affairs and Dr. R. T. Ravenholt, Director
Population Bureau for Population and Humanitarian Affairs to remain
in office.
The Legislative Branch, because it has authorized legis-
lation and appropriated funds year after year to initiate, promote
and sustain anti-life programs in virtually every conceivable federal
bureaucracy including the
Office of Economic Opportunity
Office of Environmental Education
Office of Education
Department of Defense
Office of Population Affairs (HEW)
National Institutes of Health
Agriculture Department
Food and Drug Administration
Public Health Service
Social Security - MedicAID
Aid to Dependent Children
U.S. Information Agency
Population Office(AID)
Contraceptive Research Branch (NIH)
Federal Communication Commission
(See Attachment B)
25
The Judicial Branch whose Highest Court by a 7 to 2 decision
legalized the killing of unborn children up to and including the time
of birth - a decision based in part upon the impeccable historic
credentials of the Playboy Foundation as well as numerous anti-life
lower court decisions, brought about through the tireless efforts of
federally-funded Legal Service lawyers.
Earlier in my testimony I made reference not only to federal
anti-life programs and policies but also to an anti-life PHILOSOPHY
which has in fact become the State religion in so far as federal
taxes, personnel, offices and publications are used to support such
a philosophy or way of life. This philosophy now expressed as a
matter of national policy - is reflected in the following quotations-
CHAPTBR V. "The wickedness of
creating a Large Family" from
Women and the New Race.
"The most serious evil of our time is that of
encouraging the bringing into the world of large
families. The most immoral practice of the day
is breeding too many children...."
"Every jail, hospital for the insane, reforma-
tory and institution for the feeble minded cries
out against the evils of too prolific breeding
among wage-workers."
"...The most merciful thing that the large
family does to one of its infant members is to
kill it."
" What shall be said of us (society) who
permit outworn laws and customs to persist in
piling up the appalling sum of public expense,
misery and spiritual degradation."
CHAPTER VII. "When Should a Woman
Avoid Having Children? from Woman
and the New Race
"No more children should be born when the parents,
though healthy themselves, find that their children
are physically or mentally defective. No matter how
much they desire children, no man and woman have a
right to bring into the world those who are to suffer
from mental or physical affliction. It condemns the
child to a life of misery and places upon community
the burden of caring for it...."
CHAPTER IV. "The Fertility of
the Feeble-Minded" from The
Pivot of Civilization
" we realize that each feeble-minded person
is a potential source of endless progeny of defec-
26
tives, we prefer policy of immediate steri-
lization, of making sure that parenthood is
absolutely prohibited in the feeble-minded."
CHAPTER VIII. "Dangers of Cradle Competition"
from The Pivot of Civilization
"..Eugenics is chiefly valuable in its negative
aspects... it shows us that we are paying for and
even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing,
unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never
should have been born at all...
These basically vicious, racist opinions could never be a
matter of the foundation on which we base our national policy -
on the contrary! Within the next five years the federal govern-
ment will spend more than one billion dollars in taxes to promote
these ideas. For you see, Mr. Chairman, these quotes were taken
from the works of Margaret Sanger, founder of the American Birth
Control League which today we know as Planned Parenthood-World
Population.
Today, some fifty years later, the Sangerite revolution is
complete - the Sangerite philosophy or way of life has formed the
basis of federal policy in the area of population control and so-
called "family planning" a pleasant-sounding euphanism for birth
control (including contraception, sterilization and abortion.) -
The Sangerite programs and policies have become federal programs
and policies.
Despite a concerted effort to overhaul the public image of the
Sangerite Movement between the years of 1920 to mid-1960' s to tone
down its original eugenics roots and hedoristic basis of sexual
activity, the Movement has appeared to come full circle following
the January 22nd Supreme Court decision on abortion.
It is a matter of public record that Planned Parenthood -
World Population and its affiliates sees abortion as a key to elimi-
nating physically or mentally defective unborn children - as a tool
to reduce welfare rolls and as a most necessary and efficient method
of population control, i.e. the regulation of family size by govern-
ment.
Large families are an athema, as is so perfectly reflected in
Planned Parenthood 's brochure - So you finally had a boy ? which
characterizes parents of large families as being immoral and selfish
since their example "may kill us all in a few generations". (Attach-
ment C)
The story of the rise of the Sangerite anti-life philosophy
to that of national policy though basically a complex and lengthy
one, may be said to have developed from "an idea" to "an institution"
via eight plateaus, each somewhat overlapping a total time span of
more than 50 years.
27
First
Plateau
1920-1940
Second
Plateau
1940-1960
A FEW INDIVIDUALS "crying in the wilderness" - These
were the Sangerites, the Drysdales, the Gambles.
SMALL GROUPS , working together informally, then as
SMALL ORGANIZATIONS , some help of venture capital
from FOUNDATIONS . These small nucleus groups include
the International Planned Parenthood Federation and
Population Reference Bureau, the Population Council,
the Ford Foundation.
Third
Plateau
1960-1968
Fourth
Plateau
1965-1969
Fifth
Plateau
mid-1960' s
MASS MEDIA coverage, in order to achieve respecta -
bility for subject as a topic for general discussion.
A period of increased foundation interest and the
development of university-based centers during the 1960's
BILLS introduced into Congress - this activity being
carried on by leaders within Congress such as the late
Senator Gruening or outside Congress by individuals
like William Draper, recently appointed U.S. delegate
to the World Population Conference in Bucharest.
CRYSTALLIZATION OF OPPOSITION - In the United States
the Catholic Church remains the singular institution
opposed to population control in all forms including
abortion.
Sixth
Plateau
1970
APPOINTMENT of one or more High Level ADVISORY COMMIS -
SIONS of distinguished citizens to make policy recom-
mendations and WIN PUBLIC SUPPORT for legislation .
The Rockefeller Commission on Population Growth and
the American Future.
Seventh
Plateau
1970-
Eighth
Plateau
Additional Congressional hearings, culminating in
LEGISLATION usually of modest scope and funding. Key
bills include the Tydings Bill and the Environmental
Education Act.
The last plateau had been reached by the Sangerites
during the early 1970 's. This included increased
acceptance of population control and birth control
legislation, the increase of the movements structural
and financial stability through increased tax subsi-
dies and its incorporation into the institutions and
mores of society . This action continuing at many
levels including indoctrination of young children
in the elementary and secondary schools, the mass
media, university teaching centers, technological
28
service provided by researchers and the pharmaceutical indus-
try, government agencies at all levels - local/state/federal,
professional groups such as medical societies, foundations, etc.
As I said the Supreme Court abortion decision was an inevitabl^J
one. All the cliches of that decision - terms like "unwanted children",
"a woman's right to control her own body.", the population explosion -
stem from the Sangerite ethic. It represented the culmination of more
than half a century of dedication and tireless efforts by the Sanger-g
ites and the Malthusians to convince the American public of the ™
righteousness of the CAUSE and to elevate the SANGERITE-MALTHUSIAN
philosophy to that of Public Policy . This final achievement is por-
trayed quite candidly in this book Breeding Ourselves to Death - the
Story of the Hugh Moore Fund by abortion leader Lawrence Lader.
In the section on gaining Congressional Support, former N.Y.
Senator Kenneth Keating, then newly appointed National Director of
the Population Crisis Committee tells about eating in the Senate
Dining Room where he could spread the gospel of family planning among
old friends, particularly among the Republican leadership. This fight
to influence by other population control leaders in Congress goes on
today.
CONCLUSION
But what does all this have to do with this subcommittee hearing
on the Human Life Amendment? Simply this
«
For more than a year the Hogan-Helms Human Life Amendment and
similar bills have been buried in the House, where Representative Don
Edwards has refused to hold hearings, and in the Senate - hearings are
dragged out month after month to get Senators and Representatives
through the November watershed without a floor vote on such as the HLA.
Obviously there is no sense of urgency about the matter, with the
exception of a handful of dedicated men, the Congress doesn't appear to
be the least concerned that its inaction will result in the death of
hundreds of thousands of unborn children. The fact that millions of
federal tax dollars are used to promote a myriad of anti-life schemes-
from direct abortion payments (Medicaid-ADC; to the research develop-
ment and promoting of new abortion techniques to the indoctrination
of young children of an anti-life ethic - appears to raise no parti-
cular concern at family planning authorization or appropriation hearings.
Equally obvious is the fact that under these conditions we will
have a difficult time getting a Human Life Amendment passed by both
Houses. of Congress and on its way to the states for ratification.
My purpose here today is to point out the current committment A
of the Federal Government including this Congress to the anti-life ™
establishment, and briefly how such a committment was obtained and
at what price.
29
Mr. Chairman, this Congress OWES its vigorous support for a
Human Life Amendment which would protect Human Life from conception
until natural death to the American people. The Coalition would
agree that the Hogan-Helms Amendment or the newer Roncallo Amendment
would provide such protection.
Apart from the merit of these amendments themselves, we feel
that Congress should recognize the fact that through its indifference,
ignorance and its inability to withstand the pressures of the anti-life
movement, it must bear its share of guilt for the 1972 Abortion decision,
and its share of responsibility in seeing a Human Life Amendment is
passed to protect the unborn child. Your responsibility, Mr. Chairman,
in this matter is very plain.
As for our part, I believe the Coalition and the Pro-Life Move-
ment in the U. S. will continue to fight at all levels - including
the Halls of Congress and yes, even in Senate dining rooms - to educate
and to promote an ideal that is as revolutionary in our day as the
Sangerite ideal was fifty years ago.
That ideal is based on the sanctity and innate goodness of
all human life.
Thank you.
30
U.S. COALITION FOR LIFE
Vol. 1 - No. 1
September, 1972
Mrs. Randy Engel, Editor
Newdlettek
P. O. Box 315
Export, Pa. 15632
WASHINGTON. DC Latest followup of the anti-
life Rockefeller Commission involves the U.S. Office of Educa-
tion, and the non-profit company known as Population Educa-
tion. Inc. which was created by the commission and produced
the propaganda film of commission findings and recommenda-
tions.
Population Education, Inc. is directed by Christian N.
Ramsey who served as a Vice-chairman on Presidential Com-
mission on Population Growth and the American Future.
On June 5 and again on July 27, the U.S. Coalition for Life
contacted the Office of Education for a list of population
oriented environmental education projects the agency spon-
sored in 1971 and 1972. According to Walter Bogan. Director
of the Office of Environmental Education (OE), six projects
were selected in 1972. ZERO POPULATION GROWTH REP-
RESENTATIVES were used as councils.
Among the six projects listed was a $50,000 grant to the
Population Education, Inc., Christian Ramsey, Director for the
purpose of providing supplemental curriculum material for
secondary school in population education. The grant was
funded under the Cooperative Research Act PL. 83-531.
Another smaller grant of $4,000 was awarded to the Fargo-
Moorehead Chapter of ZPG for a rural pilot project on man's
activities and life styles on the environment which included
the establishment of environmental booths and exhibits at
state and county fairs.
A complete list of these grants are available from the USCL.
QUESTION HOW MUCH LONGER ARE THE
PRO LIFE FORCES OF THIS NATION GOING TO CON
TINUE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO USE TAX
FUNDS TO SUPPORT AND ABEIT THE ANTI-LIFE
FORCES????????
. HJR 837, the Congressional flip-side of S. J. Res. 108
on population stabilization has been circulated to the full House
by Congressmen Morris Udall (AzD) and Frank Horton (NYR)
who are currently scouting for co-sponsors. The House bill has
been referred to the Government Operations Committee. Pro-Life
leaders should request that their names be put on the Committee's
mailing list to be notified when hearings are to be scheduled and
should begin preparing their testimony - both oral and written.
Excellent back ground material can be found in Declaration of
U.S. Policy of Population Stabilization by Voluntary Means, 1971,
a compilation of the Senate hearings on SJR 108. Order from
U.S. Printing Office, Washington, Doc. 68-976-0, $2.50.
Another House bill HR 1 1 226 to establish a Population
Growth Institute and sponsored by Esch (MIR) has been referred
to the same Government Operations Committee.
McNamara's Bank has recently published its sector
working paper on Population Planning, designed to help member,
borrowing nations reduce their population growth rates. The
filing of a demographic analysis and survey of a country's popula-
tion policies or programs in their economic reports to the World
Bank is now required of all developing nations who wish Bank
aid. Asofjan 1 , 1 972, the Bank is sending its missionaries abroad
in order to set up the necessary institutional structures required
to plan f and administer family planning-population limitation
programs.
Annex 3 of the Bank's report on Contraceptive Method
contains serious errors. For example, the IUD is listed as a con-
traceptive rather than an abortifacicnt agent. The section on
"rhythm" mentions the calendar and temperature methods of
regulating births but ommits the newer Billings Ovulation
Method which has both universal appeal and applicability. None
of the latter methods, however, the report notes have been used
on a mass scale. For population control, the plug-or-drug approach
have greater appeal. The Bank report praises the safety and
efficiency of suction abortion and highlights the future of new
abortifacient agents such as the vaginal prostaglandin supposi-
tories which "requires no regulation of sex activity and greatly
reduces the need for education." This statement suggests that the
Bank's oversees population aides will not trouble perspective pa-
tients' consciences with the abortifacient nature of their new
magical pills guaranteed to "bring on a period". It also suggests
that World Bank leaders need to be initiated into the Pro-Life
facts of life. Write: Robert S. McNamara, President, World
Bank Group, 1818 H St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20433.
Population Planning, Mr. 1972 available from World Bank at no
charge.
It is no well kept secret that some Pro-Life groups
been waiting as long as 18 months for a ruling from the In-
ternal Revenue Service on their tax-exempt-tax deductible
status. In the meantime, the Anti-Life establishment enjoys
the exempt-deductible status which enables them to rack in
foundation and business monies. Consider the following —
Citizen's Committee on Population Growth and the Ameri-
can Future, the newest miscarriage of JDR3rd's Commission
which was created on July 1, 1972 has already obtained its
tax-exempt and deductible rating from the IRS. Leaders of
the Committee include Carol Foreman, former Commission
aide, student Stephen Salver, Hugh Downs, and Eleanor Norton
described by ZPG as "a black woman who champions liberaliza-
tion of abortion and other human rights." (USCL Reprint
#101)
The ZPGrowth Fund established in 1971 has been de-
clared a tax-deductible educational foundation. Fund board
members include Paul Ehrlich, Richard Lamm, Don Shaw and
Rodney Shaw. ZPG's computerized Abortion Data Bank is a
project of the Fund. (USCL Reprint #102)
Even well-known population control lobby groups such as
the Population Crisis Committee enjoy a limited favorable tax
status with contributions to the Committee deductible up to
50% of the net adjusted income of the donor. The PCC is
designated as a "publicly supported charitable" group operating
as an educational institution in the population field. (USCL
Reprint #103)
Letters of inquiry into suspect IRS practices may be
directed to: The Internal Revenue Service, 1111 Constitution
Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C.
The specter of US-financed, foreign aboritoriums was
raised in the Agency for International Development, Dec. 1971,
Population Program Assistance report which states," .... as
legal restrictions on postconceptive fertility control are removed,
for example, India in 1971, it is foreseeable that famdy planning
program strategy will center upon the early diagnosis and relief of
unwanted pregnancy, followed by provision of the contraceptive
information and services needed to prevent subsequent unwanted
pregnancies."
"Such pregnancy-centered programs can be much more efficient
than ordinary family planning programs because women who be-
lieve they may have an unwanted pregnancy will actively seek out
any facility offering relief, and hence educational and promotional
costs of the f.p. program can be greatly reduced, and the time
from inception of the program to reduction of fertility can be
minimized."
"Provision of relief of unwanted pregnancy plus effective con-
traception, for example, sterilization, can achieve fertility re-
duction of more than one birth per clinic acceptor and have a
powerful and rapid effect upon fertility patterns." (pgs. 34-35).
PPA Report (Dec. 1971) of AID. available from U.S. Govern-
31
ment Printing Office. Washington, D.C. 20402 $2.00. Inquiries
into A.I.D.*s abortifacient financing and policies may be directed
to: R. T. Ravenholt, Director, Office of Population, A.I.D., Wash-
ington, D.C. 20523, and to your own Congressional representatives.
A USCL inquiry to the Food and Drug Administration
of HEW into the "status" of abortifacient drugs brought the
following reply from Information Specialist Edward Nida:
" . . . . several investigational New Drug exemptions (1ND)
to the Federal Food. Drug, and Cosmetic Act are in effect for
clinical tests of such drugs ("morning after" pills). This is in
effect a test license. We are prohibited from commenting on who
has such licenses and for which drugs." Mr. Nida states the "in-
formed consent" obligation of IND holders then, "FDA's stand
on abortifacient drugs is that they are new drugs limited to in-
vestigational (test use) only. Federal law prohibits promotion or
other commercialization of these drugs UNTIL THE Y ARE PROV-
EN SAFE AND EFFECTIVE." He concludes, "I hope this in-
formation will be useful; unfortunately it is all I am free to tell
you until these drugs are licensed." (Oct. 19, 1971).
Lesson - Pro-Life forces must begin work now on halting tax-
financed clinical testing of abortafacient drugs which contrary to
FDA judgement are notoriously deadly for unborn babies. For a
detailed analysis of Federal abortifacient funding and programs
see Pro-Life Report on Population Growth and the American
Future, available from WCUC, Box 8071. Pittsburgh, Pa. 15216 or
PHL Greensburg. Box 416, Greensburg, Pa. 15601. $.75 each.
The new Child Development Act, S.36I7 which
passed the Senate June 20th is presently awaiting House action.
There are a number of disturbing sections of the bill which may
pose a potential threat to both parent(s) and child including re-
ferral services for "family planning" and purchase of such
services when not otherwise available to families enrolled in the
program; the inclusion of f.p. in health and mental services; the
entire hierarchy of bureaucratic agencies, prime sponsor, Child
and Family Services Council, local councils and delegate agencies;
the training and certification of Child Development Associates; the
authorization of the Secretary of HEW to carry out research and
demonstration projects,and a multitude of other potentially harm-
ful activities; the Child Development Research Council; the fact
that very young children UNDER the age of two could be regis-
tered under certain circumstances; and the incredible segment of
the Act having to do with the use of children as subjects of re-
search and experimentation. A thorough public debate on this Bill
is needed.
BOSTON, MASS Formal charges of violation of the
Fairness Doctrine have been filed with the FCC by the U.S. Coali-
tion for Life against WBZ-TV4, Boston, producers of the Saturday
morning children's program EARTH LAB.
On Feb. 19, 1972, Earth Lab featured a representative from
ZPG's New England Speakers Bureau, Dr. Ronald Arenson.
Shortly thereafter, the USCL contacted Shep Morgan, the pro-
ducer of Earth Lab requesting that a pro-life representative be
given an opportunity to present the other side of the population
question. No reply was received.
On June 2, 1972. a second request was filed with WBZ-TV4
with carbons to the FCC. Within five days, Mr. Morgan notified
the USCL that the entire matter had been turned over to their
Westinghouse legal staff. On June 18 Randy Engel, Executive
Director of the USCL, in N.Y.. wrote Mr. Johnson at the Westing-
house legal department requesting an interview. No reply was
received.
Earth Lab is currently filming its 1972-73 programs which
may explain the desire of WBZ-TV4 tc try to procrastinate the
showdown with the USCL.
A formal brief containing ZPG's Malthusian concepts as pre-
sented by Dr. Arenson along with details on the organization's
multi-anti-life activities was sent to the FCC on July 27. Pro-life
support for the USCL action can be directed to both, WBZ-TV4 in
Boston and William B. Ray, Chief, Complaints and Compliance
Division, Broadcast Bureau. FCC. Washington, D.C. For details
explaining the applicability of the Fairness Doctrine write for
FCC's Public Notice, July 1, 1964; Vol. 29 No. 145 of the Federal
Register. Pgs. 10415-10427.
SUSSEX, N.J The NATIONAL SOCIAL CONDI-
TIONING CAMPS bill, H.R. 6781, introduced by Rep. Murphy
of N.Y. has been referred to the Committee of the Judiciary.
The first of the NSCC. "a prototype of similar camps to be
established in every state of the Union" will be Camp Shangn-
Li, Sussex, N.J., open year-round for all dependent children
between the ages of 7 - 1 2.
The multi-purpose camps are designed to prevent pre-teen
delinquency in "disaffluent" youth who are too poor to attend
camp or "who might require attendance at camp for the pre-
vention of delinquency." Referrals are made by both private
and state-federal agencies. For details write - National Social
Conditioning Camps, Joseph Gainer, Treasurer, 2 Pennsylvania
Plaza, N.Y. N.Y. 10001.
PALO ALTO, CALIF Zero Population Growth. Inc.
has been recognized by the Selective Service System as alternate
service for conscientious objectors. The ZPG national office
and a number of chapters is employing C.O.'s, according to the
ZPG National Reporter. Feb. 1972.
Apparently, the reluctance to spill blood does not extend to
the mass computerized killing of unborn children via ZPG's Abor-
tion Data Bank which as of June 1971 has handled 1000 abortion
"hits". Information from Bank on the pregnant woman - her
address, stage of pregnancy, etc., is fed into a shared-time
computer which in turn spews out the names of 10 doctors,
hospitals or clinics willing to do the abortion. No fee is charged
and only 25% of the women using the bank make a contribution
of $5.00 or more. ZPG's income loss is supplemented by TAX-
DEDUCTIBLE PRIVATE DONATIONS.
In Michigan this Fall, ZPG will be pushing an abortion refer-
endum which permits abortion up to 20 weeks, on request, when
performed by a licensed medical or osteopathic physician in a
licensed hospital or other facility approved by the Dept. of Public
Health. The Michigan campaign is headed by Dr. Jack M. Stack,
Lansing, Michigan. (USCL Reprint 104-10*).
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON "PLANNING TO PRE-
VENT OVERPOPULATION OF THE EARTH MUST INCLUDE
EUTHANASIA, either negative or positive" .... laws regarding
euthanasia should "be changed to conform to what seems right
and what the public desires." .... we should increase our
activities immediately and to a major degree, in dealing with
population control, selective abortion, problems of mentation,
aging, suicide, and negative euthanasia. It seems unwise to attempt
to bring about major changes permitting positive euthanasia until
we have made major progress in changing laws and policies per-
taining to negative euthanasis . . . ." These comments were taken
from "Number; Types and Duration of Human Lives", by Robert
H Williams, M.D., Northwest Medicine, July, 1970, Vol. 69
#7, pgs. 493-496. Dr. Williams of the University of Washington
illustrates the anti-life domino theory to a superb degree. For a
study copy of the full text write, USCL Reprint #105-0.
HARVARD U., CAMBRIDGE, MASS Should the
Roman Catholic Church be tried before a World Court for
crimes against humanity for its opposition to Birth Control
which ( 1 ) in effect requires millions of people to have unwanted
children (2) forces unwanted children to live a life of poverty
and misery (3) permits these unwanted children to drain world
resources which are needed by wanted children born of respon-
sible parents practicing birth control and (4) in general, by its
obstinancy fails to reduce resultant suffering and death? ....
"What additional facts and statistics would you want in order to
determine (1) whether the Church should be brought before a
world court, and (2) whether it should be found guilty of any
crime?"
This "when did you stop beating your wife" orientated
discussion question is taken almost verbatim from POPULA-
TION CONTROL - Whose Right to Live, an American Educa-
tion Publications Unit Book adapted from the Harvard Social
Studies Project and edited by Charles Cutler.
The book is part of a series of 28 paper-backs covering a
wide range of topics on foreign and domestic social study is-
sues, begun at Harvard U., which eventually became one of a
dozen college and university centers designated by the U.S.
Office of Education as part of Project Social Studies.
32
In addition lo population control, the text covers birth
control, sterilization, over-population, and abortion as pre-
sented by well-known anti-life personalities and organizations.
The incredible anti-life bias of this publication, which is used
in both public and parochial high schools across the nation, is
best demonstrated in the chapter on abortion by Jane E. Brody
followed by a "discussion" of when the unborn child be-
comes a person having moral value and under what circum-
stance an abortion may be justified.
The USCL has asked that the U.S. Office of Education
publicly disassociate itself from this unit book and that it be
removed from the Project Social Studies program. Pro-
lifers therefore, may want to obtain sample copies immediately
from Education Center. Columbus, Ohio 43216, 40V each.
"Further details to follow. Note: Population Control is
copywrited by the Zerox Corporation which sponsored the
Rockefeller Population Commission's film on the findings
and recommendations of the Commission of Population Growth
and the American Future, to be aired by the PBS in November.
ANN ARBOR. MICHIGAN While general public accept-
ance of the hard-sell approach to population control is seen as be-
ing about a year away, use of educational television and public
television broadcasts which cater to a more sophisticated audience,
as an instrument of population indoctrination is a current
possibility. This is the conclusion of an article which appeared in
the Ob. GYN. News (Vol. 7, No. 12) and illustrated by campaign
signs such as "OVERPOPULATION - May be Hazardous to your
Health."
The Physicians International Press release outlines the recom-
mendations of a student "Think Tank" with 37 members of the
U. of Michigan in co-operation with the Michigan Council on En-
vironmental Quality. The prepared material from the workshop
focused on the use of the mass media - newspapers, magazines,
TV and radio, with special emphasis on public broadcasting.
(USCL Reprint #106-0).
And speaking of public broadcasting, the USCL in a
letter to the Public Broadcasting Service on July 27, 1972 has
I that the PBS provide a complete public disclosure of
the facts surrounding the November airing of John D. Rocke-
feller 3rd's population masterpiece, on his Commission findings.
In addition, the PBS has been asked to provide an opportunity
for a similar program on the population issue by Pro-life experts
in this area. PBS reaction will be reported in next newsletter.
UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, NY The
U.N.'s Population Division has been charged with planning and co-
ordinating a World Population Conference in NY. on Aug. 19 -
30, 1974, while World Population Yeai-1974 responsibilities
have been given to the U.N. Fund for Population Activities, a
quasi-official group financed largely with AID-tax funds with
offices on Lexington Avenue in N.Y.
A pre-liminary report on the year and conference has been
issued by the Economic and Social Council and is available from
Kathleen Jupp, of the U.N Population Fund, U.N., N.Y.
It should be noted, that at the 1965 World Population
Conference, in Belgrade, the International Planned Parenthood
Federation, which will be one of the co-ordinating agencies for
Year and Conference- 1974, rushed into chamber meeting halls
during conference half-times to show their colored film of the
latest abortion-suction techniques.
The USCL will have additional details on the 1974 population
events in its future newsletters. Pro-life reporters may want to
write to Mr. Kelly at the U.N. Press Office in N.Y. for details on
covering the events at the U.N. during August
NEW YORK, N.Y Never let it be said that the
Population Control I stahhshment leaves anything to mere chance.
Youth') Agenda for the Seventies by Wade Greene is a report on
the White House Conference on Youth with a Summary of
Recommendations prepared by the Youth Task Force of the JDR
3rd Fund. The resolution on population and consumption states:
"that the U.S. take an exemplary leadership role in effecting
measurable steps toward population stabilization and eventual
reduction."
Other recommendations from the youth conference include
universal contraception to all including minors be made available
by government", that federal funds for contraceptive research be
intensified; that taxpayers foot the bill for an abort ion-on-com-
mand policy; and that population control education be integrated
into the school curriculum .... which is to say the exact same
thing as JDR 3rd's Commission said only eleven months later.
The Youth Agenda report is available free from the JDR
3rd Fund, Box 1105, Radio City Station, N.Y, N.Y. 10019.
BRONX, N.Y Pro-Life writers and leaders interested
in offering reprints of good articles on abortion, euthanasia,
population control, etc. to students via school and public libraries
should send such material on a REGULAR MONTHLY BASIS to
the H. W. Wilson Co., 950 University Ave., Bronx, N.Y. 10452
publishers of a Vertical File Index which lists pamphlets by title
and subject. The Dec. 1971 issue of the Index under Abortion
carried 6 articles submitted by the Assoc, for the Study of
Abortion and offered FREE on request. Pamphlets so listed
are ordered from the source, i.e., the ASA, and NOT the
Wilson Co.
"Conception and Contraception" is a recent article
appearing in Natural History, Aug. - Sept., 1972 (Vol. LXXXI,
No. 7). Wedged in between photos of charging buffalo bulls and
ads for wild life societies is a full page picture of IUDs, foam,
pills, condoms and assorted contraceptive and abortive devices
followed by a detailed description of contraception and abortion
techniques. The author is Prof. Gerald Oster who has been exper-
imenting with the Copper - IUD. According to Prof. Oster, new
birth control paths lie in the way of once-a-month abortifacient
oral pills. His conclusions are typically Malthusian . . ."
Sociologists agree, however, that it is equally important to -in-
culcate in the masses a recognition of the dangers of over-
important to inculcate in the masses a recognition of the dangers
of over-population and a strong personal need to restrict the size
of the family. Meanwhile, the population time bomb keeps
ticking away."
While there is very little original material in the Oster article,
its appearance in a magazine like Natural History is of significance
to the Pro-Life Movement. Letters to the editor may be directed
to: Natural History, 79th & Central Pky., W., NY., N.Y. 10024.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA Pro-Life forces in Georgia
have hit the Department of HEW in the gut by demanding that a
Federal grant of $185,000 to Emory University for a two-year
study on abortion and unwanted births to be conducted by well-
known pro-abortion physicians, be rescinded. National pro-life
support to our Georgian brothers-in-arms can be directed to HEW
head Elliot Richardson, President Nixon, and Congressman.
In addition to showing once again how much more enterprising
the children of the darkness are when compared to the children
of the light, this incident proves the need for solid pro-life
research initiative into the multi-faceted areas of anti-life issues
and pro-life alternatives. Information on Federal research grants
may be obtained through the Office of Population Affairs (HEW)
and/or the Contraceptive Research Branch of the Center for
Population Research of the NHI (HEW).
In addition to protesting the EMORY U. grant #130171-01,
pro-lifers may also want to include a NIH grant #69-2094
awarded to Robert L. Brent of Jefferson U. in Philadelphia, Pa.
for a "study in experimental methods of interrupting pregnancy
(microwave radiation)" (P. 202, HEW Five Year Plan, #68-1 78-0,
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington: 1971.)
DAYTON, OHIO The Compass, the journal of
MAP (More Agricultural Production) calls for a new world-wide
commitment to fight hunger and malnutrition in developing
nations. MAP's immediate plans include a public education
campaign and youth scholarship program in agricultural for
promising young people in areas of L.A., Asia, etc. Long range
plans include the establishment of demonstration and research
farms utilizing local talent in areas with vast untapped agricultural
potential.
The Compass is an excellent pro-life population reference
newspaper. Regular MAP membership, $3.00, includes a sub-
scription to Compass. MAP's mailing address: Main Box 1101,
Dayton, Ohio 45401.
33
DATELINE THE WORLD
JAPAN The Pro-Life Movement in Japan has made
significant headway since Spring. On April 4, 1972, Minister of
Welfare, Mr. Nobuo Saito at a debate of the Budget Committee
of the Upper House stat.d that the time has come for the Diet to
persuade the people to have more respect for life and that the
Eugenic Protection Law (EPL) section permitting abortion for
economic reasons should be deleted from the law. He particularly
stressed the importance of not aborting the FIRST child.
Similarly, Mr. Tamaki (Sen.. Liberal Democratic Party) stated
that respect for human life is the very foundation of the principles
of good government noted that the Prime Minister himself
attended the ceremony for the repose of souls of the departed
unborn, performed in the mountain village of Chichibu (Saitama
Prefecture) to demonstrate his commitment to life.
Prime Minister Sato said, "I hear that Japan is widely known
as an "Abortion Paradise". It is loathesome for me even to hear
such a thing with my ears and pronounce it with my lips .... the
abuse must stop .... we must never forget that a baby is a gift of
nature and its life must be respected."
"1 have been requested to erect a statue of MIZUKO JIZO
(deity of unborn children) in memory of the children who were
aborted .... so that they may rest in peace .... 1 made it my
business to show respect for human life by attending the
ceremony. (Complete translation of text - USCL Reprint
#107-50*).
On May 24, the Cabinet approved the revision clause of the
EPL. BUI now goes to the National Diet for approval. Seicho
No Le Religious group with Catholic co-operation is spear-heading
the pro-life movement in Japan.
On June 4, 1972, ASAHI, the Japanese daily, ran an
article on the efforts of the Japan Family Planning Association
(the Inter. Planned Parenthood affiliate) to halt the revision of
EPL which would help tighten up the nation's abortion laws.
Following an emergency meeting of the JFPA, Chairman Dr.
Yoshio Koyasent a protest letter to the Diet attacking the revision
on the grounds that ( 1 ) if the EPL deletes the economic reason
for abortion, both illegal abortions and the fee for legal abortions
will increase (2) the number of illegitimate and unwanted children
will increase resulting in unhappiness (3) the hardships of life
will make psychological burdens increase .... (4) and the
recognition of reasons for abortion will become dependent upon
the subjective judgement of a physician, and it therefore becomes
easier for a physician to procure an abortion. Dr. Koya's con-
clusion is that the revision of the EPL would do more harm than
good.
Opposition to the revision may also be based on the fact that
so many physicians depend on extra profit from Japan's present
abortion law and that passage of the revision might signal a govern-
ment-campaign to increase its anti-abortion pressures. (USCL
Reprint #108-20*).
ENGLAND In its January, 1972 newsletter, the In-
ternational Planned Parenthood Federation described its educa-
tional and training objectives for 1972-1974 "Young people
are identified as a special target group."
"While the IPPF will press and assist UNESCO to penetrate the
school systems of all countries, a special effort is to be made by
the voluntary sector to reach those millions of young peor-i ' who
never get to school or who drop out of school after only a f ew
years of education . . ."
The IPPF is funded primarily by the U.S. tax-payers via USA1L
In February it sent a team of physicians to Decca to abort pregnant
Bangladesh women who had been the victims of rape under a pro-
gram called the "Bangladesh Women's Emancipation Program"
The short range purpose of this scheme is to establish abortion
centers across the nation to be manned by abortionists trained
by the IPPF. The long range plan calls for setting up facilities to
train women to become self-sufficient and socially better placed.
According to the Federation, ONE OF THE MAIN OBJEC-
TIVES OF THE PROGRAM IS TO RE-ESTABLISH AND SUP-
PORT FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAMS AND ENCOURAGE
SMALLER FAMIL1FS.
As for the Government of Bangladesh, it appears as if they
have had enough of the IPPF tactics. Recently, the Minister of
Health Abdul Malek Ukil announced "We have had enough of con-
traceptives. For me, family planning includes pre and post natal
care, maternity care, child nutrition and infant welfare.
Women Concerned for the Unborn Child in Pittsburgh, Pa. re-
cently sent a gift of $1,000 collected at their Right-to-Life
Ecumenical religious service to Bangladesh, for the care of the
children and their mothers - both victims of rape during the
war. Other pro-life groups may want to follow WCUC's fine
example.
CAMBRIDGE Bibliography on Family Planning and
Population, a bi-monthly list of references compiled from the
world's literature on abortion, population control, etc., is now
available from the Simon Population Trust, founded in 1957
to "help in the adjustment of world population to resources."
The first issue of the bibliography, July, 1972, carried num-
erous anti-life references. To see that a proper balance is
achieved, pro-life writers and/or groups should send copies of
books or articles to: Donn Casey, Simon Population Trust
Fund, Bibliography, 141 Newmarket Rd., Cambridge CBS
8 HA, England.
Through a special photocopy service utilizing coupons, pro-
life readers may obtain articles which are not available in the
U.S. The Bibliography ($3.00 single issue; $18.00 a year)
should be in every pro-life office as a reference for members
and leaders.
CANADA The subject of tax-supported provincial
aboritoriums or so called "Pregnancy Centres" to take pressures
off over-crowded and/or recalcitrant hospitals appeared in a
Globe editorial on Oct. 22, 1971. Such centres would include
beds, operating and recovery rooms, medical records department
and provide post-operative followup care and counseling. (USCL
Reprint #109-10*).
Dr. Benjamin Viel, Directot General of the International
Planned Parenthood Federation (England) stated that it will be
difficult to control world population if CONTRACEPTIVE
METHODS ARE NOT COMBINED WITH ABORTION. Address-
ing the annual meeting of the Family Planning Federation of
Canada, Dr. Viel said that consideration should be given to the
legalization of abortion as a means of reducing the increasing
world population but that abortion should be regarded as an
emergency measure followed by use of contraceptive methods to
prevent risk of further pregnancies. From Hamilton Special,
Dec. 15, 1971. (USCL Reprint #1 10-10*).
Addressing the College of Family Practice in Canada,
Dr. John Lederman of Vancouver stated that the early discovery
and relief of unwanted pregnancy may render objections to
abortion obsolete.
According to Dr. Lederman's reasoning people who do not
disapprove of the Pill, the 1UD, or "morning-after" pill do object
to abortion because it destroys a living fetus. Therefore, women
who have missed a period and suspect they are pregnant can go to
their doctors for a routine scraping or suction procedure. If not
pregnant, no harm would result. If she were, the newly implanted
egg would be removed . . . just like an endometrial biopsy. Thus
such a procedure would "reduce it to the point where it is not
offensive to anyone's ethics." From Globe and Mail, Sept. 15,
1971. pg. 9. (USCL Reprint #11 1-10*).
ITALY The Italian magazine EPOCA, Ap. 9, 1972,
carried an article on England's black market for French and Ger-
man babies to help fill adoption requests. The sharp decline of
available babies for adoption in England is credited to widespread
use of contraceptive pills and the fact that many unmarried wo-
men now keep their children. While waiting for the liberalization
of Common Market Adoptive regulations, the shameful commerce
continues as babies are sold to the highest bidder. (USCL
Reprint #1 1 2-F).
34
U.S. COALITION FOR LIFE
Vol. 2 No. 2
January. 1973
Mrs. Randy Engel, Editor
NeuPilett&i
P. O. Box 315
Export, Pa. 15632
BIRTH PATROL ON THE MARCH - "Fewer People for a Better World" is the theme song of the latest population control
agency, NPG - NEGATIVE POPULATION GROWTH, 103 Park Ave.. Suite 414. New York. New York 10007.
Listed among the Board members are
Edgar Chasteen. President of Compulsory Birth Control for ALL Americans. Liberty I ? I. Mo.
Richard Bowers, Zero Population Growth
Alfred Forsyth, Sierra Club
Stewart Ogilvy, Population Communication Center. (Population Institutel
Sir Julian Huxley (Patron)
Miss Shirley MacLaine
Miss Joanne Woodward
Shirley Radl, National Organization for Non-Parents
The precise goal of NPG is to reduce world population to ONE-HALF its present level via compulsory population control.
In the conflict between individual choice and the needs of society relating to family size, the conflict according to NPG must be
resolved in favor of the common good ... WITHOUT A SINGLE EXCEPTION".
"The forms and extent of the controls (to reduce population) must be decided by Congress. They could vary from
minumum and voluntary controls such as government guidelines to family size, at one end of the spectrum, to compulsory birth
control at the other end, with compulsory sterilization after one child. "
"However, whatever Congress decides as to the form of the necessary controls, it is essential that they be immediately
effective in getting the job done, and the population reduced. "
"National programs of population control must be put into effect now!" (Source: Statement of Purpose and Program
- Negative Population Growth, Inc. I
The Executive Director of NPG is John Rague, who is also the Executive Director of the Association for Voluntary
Sterilization.
OEO ISSUES STERILIZATION QUOTAS - In 1971,
the Office of Economic Opportunity amended its policies to
include contraceptive sterilization programs.
A grant of $240,000.00 was awarded to the Planned
Parenthood Association of the Southern Mountains and a
quota of 1 50 vasectomies and 150 tubal ligations established
for the Anderson County pilot project over a 2 year period.
Codedata, derived from interviews with sterilization ap-
plicants, who were unaware that they were guinea pigs in a
government pilot program, was then fed into computers by
the Tennessee Dept. of Public Health.
Implementation of similar "OEO projects", however,
have been temporarily suspended by OEO Director of
Health Affairs, Dr. Leon Cooper until the costs, priorities
and long range effects of contraceptive sterilization have
been more fully evaluated. Source: N.Y. Times, 5 28 72.
I Reprint No. 113-20cl.
OEO AND CONTRACEPTIVES TO MINORS - THE
RALEIGH PROJECT. On Nov. 11, 1969 the State
Edition of the Houston Chronicle ran an-article by Chicago
Times correspondent Tom Littlewood entitled, "U.S. Starts
Bold Plan for Pre-Pregnant Teens".
Financed by a two year grant from the Federal Office of
Economic Opportunity, the Raleigh Project featured a
health department clinic in a public housing neighborhood
which catered to black, unmarried teenage girls who had
never been pregnant. The program included "sex education
meetings" and distribution of contraceptives, as well as
physician referrals.
According to Mr. Littlewood, the Innovative OEO
program was part of "the frontier of social policy as the
government presses toward President Nixon's announced
goal of making birth control assistance available within five
years for all income women." He also noted that "As in
Raleigh, all of the most imaginative and successful programs
for 'pre-pregnant' teenagers are in black-urban neigh-
borhoods." (Reprint No.ll4-20cl
35
WHAT STAGE POPULATION CONTROL? - Ac-
cording to the Feb. 1970 issue of Population Bulletin, a
publication of the Population Reference Bureau, the
transition of great ideas pass through a series of states as
follows..
1. A few individuals crying in the wilderness 2.
Formation of nucleus groups aided by foundation
capital 3. Mass media coverage which increases as
does foundation support and the start of university
interest 4. Feeler bills introduced into Congress 5.
Opposition crystallization and delay in progress 6.
Appointment of high-level governmental com-
missions to win public support 7. Congressional
hearings resulting in federal funding, and 8.
"INCREASING acceptance of the legislation, its
strengthening in structural and financial terms,
and its incorporation into the institutions and
mores of society." Ip. 231.
In the area of population control, "private individuals,
private non-profit organizations and educational institutions
will be the key to success or failure in this effort." Ip. 24).
For a copy of this population control blueprint write :
Population Reference Bureau, IPRB.) 1755 Massachusetts
Ave. N. W.. Washington, D.C. 20036. $.50 copy.
NOTE ON P.R.B. - Founded in 1929. the P.R.B.
remained a one-man horse-show until 1954 when
millionaire-population controller, Hugh Moore bailed Guy
Irving Burch's agency out of bankruptcy. Mr. Moore made
himself chairman of the board and pulled in Standard Oil's
Frank Abrams who in turn pulled in Ford and Rockefeller
money. By 1966, the P.R.B. was operating on an annual
budget of $400,000.00.
The teacher's guide to Rockefeller's film,
POPULATION GROWTH and the AMERICAN
FUTURE, was prepared by the Population Reference
Bureau as was the population control grade-school text,
This Crowded World.
PHYSICIANS AND POPULATION CONTROL ■
In the October, 1971 issue of The New Physician,
ZPG leader and Chief Vasectomizer at Chicago's Midwest
Population Center, Dr. Lony Myers discusses in depth the
role of physicians in the new science of "hyponatology. the
art and science of lowering birth rates." Among the ten
mandated points for the medical profession listed by Dr.
Myers to cope with the "population-environment crisis" are ;
I. Recognize the need for an immediate plan to stabilize
population. II. Assume leadership in carrying out this plan ;
V . Support the concept that responsible parenthood means a
maximum of two natural children per family: VII. Accept
the principle that responsible sexual intercourse purely for
recreation is more socially responsible than intercourse solely
for procreation; IX. Promote alternate life styles for women
so that motherhood is not the dominant role of fulfillment,
(p. 6451.
More recently, Dr. Myers is peddling her Malthuaian
wares to the American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, described by the ZPG's National Reporter as
"one of the bodies commonly accepted as setting standards
of behavior within the medical profession." For a look at Dr.
Myers' revised resolution, see the Nov. Dec. 1972 issue of
the National Reporter, 4080 Fabian Way, Palo Alto, Ca.
94393.
OPERATION LAWSUIT by AVS, ZPG, and ACLU
According to the Association for Voluntary
Sterilization's Jan. 19th Progress Report, OPERATION
LAWSUIT is a co-ordinated effort of the AVS and its allies,
primarily the American Civil Liberties Union and Zero
Population Growth, to force "backward" hospitals into
permitting contraceptive sterilization on request.
Two well publicized cases in recent months involve St.
Vincent's Hospital in Billings. Montana and Holy Rosary
Hospital in Miles City. While the former institution received
a small Federal grant under the Hill-Burton program, 17
years ago, the latter hospital is not supported in any way by
public funds. There is an aspect of these lawsuits which to
date has not been examined, however.
Specifically, in the Jan. 19th issue of the AVS Progress
Report (pg. 41 there was a partial statement reprinted from
a letter to the AVS from ACLU (Eastern Montana) Vice
Chairman, Robert Bulkley concerning the contraceptive
sterilization issue.
Keeping in mind that the consolidation of St. Vincent's
with Deaconess Hospital was not completed until June 5th,
1^72. and Mr. Bulkley's comments were made while con-
solidation processes were as yet not finalized, we
read "As a result (of the centralization of facilities), the
mother who wishes to be sterilized shortly after the delivery
of a child will be in a difficult position their rights will be
significantly reduced. WE ARE CO'iSIDERING
TAKING ACTION AGAINST THE CATHOLIC
HOSPITAL TO FORCE IT TO ALLOW
STERILIZATION AT LEAST IN THESE CIR-
CUMSTANCES...." (emphasis added!.
The listing of the Board of Directors of the Association
for Voluntary Sterilization (14 W. 40th St., N.Y.N.Y.
10018) includes numerous abortion-on-command advocates
including Lawrence Lader; Rev. Rodney Shaw; Paul
Ehrlich; Alan Guttmacher; Christopher Tietze; Emily
Mudd; Harriet Pilpel and Joseph Fletcher to name a few.
Pro-Life legal advisors should begin preparing now for a
new OPERATION LAWSUIT....this one directed at
recalcitrant hospitals which will not permit the killing of the
unborn to take place in their facilities.
36
HEW OFFICIAL DISCUSSES POLICIES
The new director of the U.S. Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare, National Center for Family Planning Services, Miss
Majorie Costa, in an address at the annual convention of the Planned Parenthood Federation, San Antonio, Oct. 23-26, stated
that a national program of sex education and human sexuality "from the pre-school level right on up" was advocated by her
department.
According to Miss Costa, the federal government is not funding any programs in which abortion is used as a means of
contraception or population control. (Source: American Medical News, Nov. 13, 19721.
Miss Costa, however failed, to explain how millions of dollars of federal funds being tunneled into Planned Parenthood
units, in the U.S. and abroad, will be prohibited from use in programs where abortion is used as a "back-stop to faulty or om-
mitted contraception," or as a population control measure as in Singapore or India.
For the record we quote Dr. Alan F. Guttmacher's statement on the role of abortion in Planned Parenthood programs
taken from "Planned Parenthood : Profile and Prospectus", F. P. Perspectives, Vol. 3, No. 1 Jan. 1971, Pgs. 57-58.
"To achieve this society (i.e. "the perfect contraceptive society"! we in Planned Parenthood must establish a multi-faceted
program which would include, in addition to contraceptive services, the following elements; contraceptive education for all
youth so that at the appropriate time in their lives contraception will be accepted as naturally as breathing ; infertility services,
including artificial donor insemination where necessary genetic counseling, ABORTION and sterilization; veneral disease
diagnosis and treatment. Many ofour Affiliates now include some of these services. IN THE FUTURE, ALL OR MOST OF
US MUST INCLUDE ALL OF THEM (emphasis added.)
Dr. Guttmacher concludes his two-page article with the suggestion that Planned Parenthood will shift its emphasis from
legal, religious, and bureaucratic battles to intergrating its programs into the growing "family planning network of hospitals,
health departments, and other nonprofit agencies"....
Presently most Planned Parenthood federal funding is conducted through so called, Regional Family Planning
"COUNCILS".
For example, in Illinois, HEW funds flow into the Illinois Family Planning Coordinating Council, and out to P.P. of
Chicago and its teeny-bopper affiliate TEEN SCENE.
In New York City, HEW funds flow into the N.Y.C. Inter-Agency Council on Family Planning and to PP of NYC which
operates two of its own aboritoriums.
UNICEF AND POPULATION CONTROL
The United Nation's Children's Fund according to the
Sept. 1972 issue of the International Planned Parenthood
News is now destined to play "a more agressive role in family
planning activities" as a result of implementing recom-
mendations of the WHO UNICEF Joint Policy Committee
approved by the Executive Board.
UNICEF's unholy alliance with the WHO. which sees
abortifacient drugs as a key weapon in population control in
developing countries, will center primarily in the area of
support for "advanced training in human reproduction,
population dynamics and family planning" with specific
emphasis on providing contraceptive supplies, equipment
and transport.
PASTE YOUR UMBRELLA BEFORE THE
RAIN is a booklet prepared by the Chinese Center for In-
ternational Training in Family Planning of Taiwan with
some technical aid from Rockefeller's Population Council.
UNICEF contributed $10,000.00 worth of paper and ink,
thuB making possible the initial printing of 440,000 copies,
enough for every boy and girl graduating in 1971 from junior
and senior high schools and vocational schools.
The thrust of this publication is unabashedly and
ruthlessly Malthusian-population control orientated.
Couples with large families i.e. more than two or three
children are depicted in a constant state of mental and
physical anguish. The "Population Explosion" is blamed for
a multitude of sins including refuse disposal, air and water
pollution, water shortage, heavy traffic and housing
problems.
Much of the section on contraception is truly heart-
warming. For example, the booklet cites the case history of a
college graduate infected and disabled from TB and finally
classified as a grade 1 indigent. They have six children ages
16 to two, and live on relief and the small income earned by
the wife. The reporter who originally cited the case in a
newspaper article was sympathetic to the sacrificing mother
but the authors of Paste Your Umbrella stated, "We
however, think that their troubles were caused by this stupid
couple themselves." (pg. 44-English version). The theme,
"every child a wanted child" and "two is enough!" is
repeated in the Family Planning Song at the conclusion of
the text;
"Family Planning has a theme
Two children as each couple's dream;
Three years after marriage, one-
Before 33 childbearing's done.
Let a small family be your goal
Just choose a method of birth control
Methods are safe and simple too
A happy future waits for you."
37
PRO-LIFE MEMBERS SEEK APPOINTMENT TO HEWS POPULATION COMMITTEE
In 1973, three positions will be open on the Secretary- of HEW's Advisory Committee on Population Affairs headed by
Dr. Louis Hellman. The Committee is divided into Services Task Force and Research Task Force members. Currently,
there are well known anti-life personalities sitting on each task force.
As of July 28th, Committee membership included the following :
Service Task Force Research Task Force
Mrs. Helen Martin. Chevy Chase, Md. (19731 Dr. Gorden Douglas. N.Y. N.Y. 119741
Judith Blake Davis. Berkeley, CA. (19741 Thomas Dietz. Kent, Ohio (19721
Cary H. Hall, Hampton, GA (19731 Mrs. Jo Anne Gray, Denver. Colorado, (1972)
Herbert J. Hutton. Philadelphia, Pa. (19741 Roy 0. Greep, PH.D., Boston, MA (19721
Richard K. Manoff, N.Y., N.Y. (1974) Mrs. Eunice S. Howe. Belmont, Mass. (19721
Ernest W. Page, San Francisco, CA. (19731 Norman Ryder, Ph.D., Princeton, N.J. (1973)
Pro-Life groups who wish to submit the namelsl of members who are interested in the areas of family planning and
population control demography for consideration by the Dept. of HEW should send in immediately, the names of the can-
didates, their qualification and interests to:
Dr. Louis Hellman. Chairman
Advisory Committee on Population Affairs
Dept. of HEW
Office of the Secretary,
Washington, D.C. 20201
9 Please send carbons of all correspondents to: President Nixon
HEW Sec., Casper Weinberger
Your U.S. Senator
The USCL (for filing!
Carbons should be accompanied by a letter requesting a proper balance of views be brought to this Committee.
ANTI-LIFE VIRUS THRIVING AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
"If you are definitely pregnant and decide that you wish to have an abortion performed, the Washington D.C. law is such £
that obtaining one here will present no particular trouble. There are a number of agencies and clinics that perform counselling £
and dispense abortion information in Washington. A list of them can be obtained by calling Georgetown University Hot Line at %
625-4194. Because safe and legal abortions can be obtained presently, there should be no reason to have an illegal one per- $
formed." X
"There are presently four methods of abortion that are generally used Dilation and Curettage. ..Vacuum Curet- £
..Saline Injection. ..and Hysterotomy. A method that is still somewhat in experimental stages but promises to come into £
Y more widespread use in the future is prostaglandin therapy. It should be remembered that these procedures are all
1 surgical operations and that they all can produce physical trauma. In order to lessen the extent of this, it is best
tage..
all considered
i best to have the
abortion performed as early as possible. Abortions after the 20th week should not be performed, since the likelihood of
irreparable harm to the mother and aborting a fully functioning human is very great. ..(p. 35-361.
"The intrauterine device (the IUDl is inserted into the uterus making it in some manner unreceptive to a fertilized
egg....lp.28).
"A method which costs little and exhibits no side effects, except possible enlargement of the female's abdomen is the
Rhythm method." (p. 31) the requirement of premeditated temperature-taking, and the rhythm method finds no effective
place on the college campus, (p. 441.
From Human Sexual Response-Ability
Students of Georgetown U., Inc.
Introduction-Rev. R. C. Baumiller, S. J. J
38
\BOH IIOVTHE NEW COMMODITY? Source-Legal Abortion: How Safe'.' How Available? How Costly?, Consumer
Reporta-Facte ^ou Need Before Von Buy No Advertising. July 1972. 60c I Address; P. O. Box 11 11. Mt. Vemon, N.Y.
105501. pgs. 166-470.
INDEX
Outboard motors Air-Conditioners Zippers Station Wagons Self-Cleaning Ovens
, El. Fans Legal Abortions
Ixmdspeakers
Marine-Radio Telephones
Putting "moral and religious" arguments aside. Consumer I'nion. confines itself to information gleaned "from doctors,
public health officials and abortion referral specialists" about "the safety, availability and costs of abortion." Information is
selected from the Joint Program for the Study of Abortion IJPSAI financed by Rockefeller's Population Council at a 0OS1 ol
(246.623.00.
Despite a prohibition policy of no advertising, the article lists the addresses and phone numbers for Family Planning In-
formation Service of N.Y.Cand the National Clergy Consultation Service, of N.Y.C., along with appropriate aboritorium fees.
According to Consumer Reports, the Clergy Consultation Services "was founded for the specific purpose of helping
women to obtain abortions. In 1971, some 3000 Clergy counselors handled more than 100.000 referrals for abortion."
While the report suggests that Planned Parenthood and Clergy Consultation Service are "non-profit" agencies and charge
no fee for referrals, it has been established that in certain areas of the countr\ . i. e., Los Angeles. Calif., a kick-back of between
$20-25 is received by these agencies per abortion. (L. A. Times West Magazine, July 23, 19721. Additionally, Planned
Parenthood of New York City operates two aboritoriums with fees ranging from $ 1 25 to $800 or more depending on length of
pregnancy.
Pennsylvania legislators might be interested in noting that " one hospital in Philadelphia performed more abortions in
1970 than all those in Delaware and South Carolina combined-even though the latter two states had recently liberalized their
laws." (pg. 4691
Pro-Life physicians will have a field-day with such comments as "In terms of fatalities, early abortion is far safer than
childbirth and SALINE ABORTION thus far appears to be somewhat safer than a full-term delivery in short, abortion is
safe only in competent medical hands.... ."Letters to the Editor of Consumer Reports may be directed to above address.
SEATTLE-KING COUNTY DISTRIBUTES
"MORNING-AFTER" PILL
According to Dr. T. L. Marks, Director of Family
Planning for Seattle-King County's Dept. of Public Health
the so called "Morning-After" Pill now under investigation
b\ Ilalph Nader's health research associates, "is available on
prescription from most physicians in the community, Family
Planning Clinics of the Health Department, Planned
Parenthood Center, and University affiliated clinics."
(Source: Seattle Times-9 7 711.
Among the nine points listed on the Seattle-King
County Health Dept. Acknowledgement and Consent and
Instruction sheet, which is signed by the patient and wit-
nessed are:
1. The effectiveness in preventing pregnancy cannot be
assured*.
21 This medication may cause serious reactions and com-
plications, both known and unknown to me and my fetus.
4. Side effects such as nausea and vomiting, headaches and
dizziness often severe, may occur with this medication.
9. Since the morning -after pill is not something I should take
repeatedly. I must use a method of birth control each time I
have intercourse to prevent pregnancy.
N< ill : This medication which has been linked with vaginal
cancer, and has not been approved by the Food and Drug
Administration, according to an administrator of Planned
Parenthood Center. Seattle, IS GIYT.N TO MINORS
WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT, by her agency.
OEE OFFERS ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
HANDBOOK
The U. S. Office of Education has issued a draft of the
Environmental Education Handbook which outlines the
projects and requirements for grants of the Office of En-
vironmental Education.
In 1972, the OEE made six grants, totaling
$127,000.00 for "population education".
Pro-Life organizations or interested individuals should
write immediately for the Handbook and request an ap-
plication if they are interested in filing for an environmental
grant in the areas of population, resources, etc.
Last fiscal year, awards went to the following;
$13,000 111 Alexis DuPont School. Greenville, DE for
Population Environment Project
$35,000 121 Indiana University Foundation, Bloomington,
IN. for H.S. Population Unit
$20,000 (31 U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C.- In-
service Training Program
$ 4,000 (4) ZPG-Fargo-Moorehead Chapter-Rural
Population Study-Booth, Fargo, N.D.
$ 5,000 (51 U. of Cincinnati. Cincinnati, Ohio for
Population Education Inservice Course.
$50,000 (6) Population Education, Inc., Washington, DC-
Secondary School Population Education.
Handbook and applications available from:
Office of Environmental Education
400 Maryland Ave., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20202
39
WHITE HOUSE PROBES HEW INVOLVEMENT IN ROCKEFELLER FILM
President Nixon's advisor, John Ehrlichman, charged with domestic affairs, is investigating the role of the Dept. of HEW
in the sponsorship and distribution of the film Population Growth and the American Future, which was aired over the PBS
on Nov. 29th, 1972.
HEW funds authorized for film distribution, the preparation of study guides and teachers materials, purchase of films, cost
of editing film into "teaching modules" and grant to Population Education, Inc. now totals more than $220,000.00.
The USCL has asked Dr. Ehrlichman to make public all grants and contracts involved in the project including the $50,000
grant to Population Education, Inc. from the U.S. Office of Environmental Education. It has also asked that all materials
currently being edited and prepared by Dr. Louis Hellman's Office of Population Affairs be first reviewed by a special
Congressional Committee appointed by the President to assure that the views presented are objective and balanced.
Since the Dept. of HEW has already purchased 100 copies of the Rockefeller film, the U.S. Coalition for Life has
requested that 100 copies of the second PBS hour be purchased and that the Office of Environmental Education and Office of
Population provide equivalent funds to the U.S.C.L. for the preparation of teaching materials similar to those now being
prepared to accompany the film.
Negotiations are expected to take several months, and the film is expected to be withheld until government administrators
can assure the taxpayer that all points of view are being heard on the population question.
For additional details see USCL MEMO for Jan. 20, 1973.
A.I.D. OFFICIAL ADDRESSES IPPF MEDICAL
AND SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS- SYDNEY, AUGUST
1972
Dr. R. T. Ravenholt, director of the Office of
Population, USAID, took note of the fact that from 1965-
1972 AID allocated $385 million towards population
programming. According to Dr. Ravenholt it was becoming
increasingly necessary to reach young women to curb early
reproduction. He said that no coercion should be employed,
but all methods should be made available in family planning
programs, including ABORTION.
A significant portion of the IPPF agenda was given over
to abortifacient agents such as prostaglandins. Dr. S. S.
Ratnam of Singapore stated his hospital used prostaglandins
for 2nd trimester abortion and that his trial supply came
from the IPPF.
Dr. Ben Branch of PRETERM, Washington, D.C.'s
key aboritorium, evaluated outpatient vacuum aspiration
programs which he expected would reduce long-term
problems of future spontaneous abortion, ectopic pregnancy
pre-mature delivery and involuntary sterility.
Dr. R. P. Soonawala of India discussed his massive
experiments with 5,000 vaginal sterilizations of which 2,269
were under his own supervision. He stated that Indian
women were more likely to come to the sterilizing operating
theatres if the word "operation" was no used. The women
instead were told that a stitch would be put in the vagina and
they would be safeguarded from having further children.
Patients were advised not to have sexual relations for 4-6
weeks by telling their husbands that this might disturb the
stitch.
Dr. Rosenfield presented a paper on the effect of the
copper T-IUD, which he suggested interfered with the
implantation of the blastocyst.
Dr. Malcolm Potts, of the IPPF, presented the final
conference paper on coitus-interruptus or withdrawal which
he stated should have a place in family planning programs,
as this method of birth control could serve as a conditioning
agent to the acceptance of clinic-based methods. According
to Dr. Potts, withdrawal when combined with legal abortion
might present less risk of morbidity and mortality than the
continued use of medical methods of contraception with their
"rare but sometimes serious side-effects."
USCL Reprint No. 1 19
ZPG AND CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR STATUS -
Prolife groups and individuals who wish to have Zero
Population Growth removed from the alternate service
program of the Selective Service as "a non-profit
organization contributing to the national health, safety and
welfare" may send letters accompanied when possible, by
clippings of local ZPG anti-life activities to:
Mr. Byron Pepitone, Acting National Director
Selective Service System
Washington, D.C.
"HOW TO GET 6,000 ABORTIONS A DAY!"
Contraception-Sterilization-Abortion-Population Control.
Anthony Zimmerman, SVD, STD covers them all in an
excellent expose of the true nature and consequences of
governmental population control programs
"....And another Korean official told us at the Second
World Population Conference that a nation which launches a
birth control campaign owes it to the citizens to liberalize
abortion laws to a certain extent "
"Accidental pregnancy is a real disadvantage in the use
of this method IIUDI. Patients are often very upset or even
hysterical when told that they are pregnant. Dr. Guttmacher
(USAI recommends induced abortion..." (comments of Prof.
Chun of Hong Kongl.
"There should be no statutory compulsion toward this
(mass sterilization), but there is a need for mobilizing public
opinion in such a manner as to operate as moral com-
pulsion " Comments of Mr. R. A. Gopalawami at 1963
Asian Population Conferency at New Delhi.
Study copy of Zimmerman article originally published
in the Dec. 1966 issue of The Reign of the Sacred Heart is
available from the USCL. Order Reprint No. 1 16 - 50c.
40
INDIA'S MEDICAL TERMINATION <>K PREGNANCY ACT. 1971 was analyzed by Drs. R. Koteswara Raq and
G. R. Bhaskar at the International Conference on Family Planning, New Delhi. March 12-16, 1972.
I ndet present regulations, abortions must be earned out by a Registered Medical Practitioner, i.e., allopathic doctors, who
are registered with a Medical Council and who have undergone training or gained experience as prescribed by the Central
Government. Six weeks of training at a teaching hospital with a minumum killing of 12 unborn children is the suggested
program.
Abortions are carried out if 1 1 1 the life or physical or mental health of the mother is threatened or (21 if the child might be
seriously mentally or physicially handicapped.
According to the explanation offered by the Indian physicians, the above criteria would cover pregnancy due to rape and
"Where any pregnancy occurs as a result of failure of any device or method used by any married woman or her husband for the
purpose of limiting the number of children, the anguish caused by such unwanted pregnancy may be presumed to constitue a
grave injur) to the mental health of the pregnant woman."
< >|mti -eason on the unborn is limited to the first twenty weeks of pregnancy. Minors or lunatics require written consent of
guardian.
Abortions may be carried out in Government Hospitals and approved private aboritoriums set aside for this purpose.
NOTE : In a medical emergency, an abortion may be carried out at any time, regardless of period of gestation of the child,
in any private hospital b> any doctor regardless of training or experience.
Additional beds for abortion patients may be set up in the General or District Hdqs. Hospital. "The same plan as adopted
for post partiim theatres and sterilization wards may be adopted."
USCL Reprint No. 1 1 7 - 40c
% According to Prof. A. Dass of New Delhi who also participated in the International Conference, "With liberalization of the
abortion law early pregnancy detection has become a means of offering comprehensive obsteric management induction of
abortion is safest between the 6th to the 8th week and the best and least traumatic method is vacuum aspiration. At this period
of gestation vaginal tubal ligation is easy. ...a nation wide publicity campaign and a quick and efficient service would greatly
contribute to the success of the programme."
USCL Reprint No. 1 18 - 30c
NOTE : India's current abortion programme appears to follow the guidelines set forth in the U.S. Agency for International
Development Population Report (Dec. 1971 1 which called for a "pregnancy-centered approach" to family planning programs
where early pregnancy detection is combined with abortion, contraception and sterilization services, (p. 34-35.)
According to the AID report, India's Abortion-on-Demand "now poses a mighty challenge to the Indian Government." Ip.
1791.
In June 1970 AID made a grant of $20 million dollars to India for expanding its family planning programs. This is in
addition to over $20 million dollars given to various projects involving condom manufacturing, bi-medical research and manu-
facture of 6,000 f.p. vehicles.
India receives aid from other agencies including the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Rockefeller's
Population Council, The Pathfinder Fund, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, CARE, Oxfam and the World
Assembly of Youth IWAYI, the Peace Corps; UNICEF, the U.N. Fund for Population Activities, and from the nations of
Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom.
(Ed. note- Almost all of the above U. S. based agencies receive the major portion of their funding from A.I.D. I.
In the Jan. 1972 issue of AID's War on Hunger, an article entitled "Selling' Vasectomies in India" featured the activities
of Dr. Datta Pai, who according to AID writer Carl Purcell is attempting to "liberate his country from the ominous threat of
overpopulation". Photographed in the AID publication was the sterilization booths and illuminated scoreboard at Emakulam
District and Dr. Pai's mobile family planning bus.
According to the Nov.-Dec. issue of ZPG's National Reporter, Dr. Pai's comprehensive program now includes "services
from sterilization to supervised abortions" if government incentive programs fail, enforced government quotas would be next,
Dr. Pai believes. Ip. 41.
41
OEO AND THE SARASOTA PROJECT • The Federal
Office of Economic Opportunity is currently financing a pilot
project for the University of Florida serving the counties of
Manatee, Charlotte. DeSoto. and Hardee.
According to Mr. Roy J. Schaffer, Executive Director of
Planned Parenthood Association of Sarasota County, Inc.,
an agency funded by the Dept. of HEW, "Girls as young as
12 and 13 can get contraceptive information and or medical
care through our program without parental consent...."
Mr. Schaffer. who. is handling the OEO project stated
that in addition to obtaining a quick test for pregnancy . "We
counsel pregnant girls.. ..determine if a therapeutic abortion
is possible, or if the baby is definitely wanted"
"The basic plan is to keep unwanted children from
being born." he explained, "and since responsible kids are
engaging in sex, they should obtain accurate medical in-
formation." The family planning project includes in-
formation in the areas of birth control, maternity care,
sterilization and abortions. I Reprint No. 115-20cl.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD Pl^BLICATION NOW
FEDERALLY FUNDED
In the Oct. 1971 issue of PP's Family Planning
Perspectives (pg.5l. the transfer of the "Literature and
Comment" section of this publication to a new publication
called Family Planning Digest was announced. As of Jan.
1972, the Digest has been published and financed by the
National Center for Family Planning Services of the
Dept. of HEW but prepared by Planned Parenthood- World
Population's Publication Unit of the Center for Family
Planning Development.
According to Mr. Richard Lincoln, PP's Director of
Publications, articles to be digested are selected by the
NCFPS which is the technical assistance Division of PF-
WP, in consultation with NEW's NCFPS. All over
responsibility for materials published and editorial comment
lie with Mr. Lincoln.
The Digest, according to Mr. Lincoln, is nut a periodical
of primary publication but rather a digest of materials
already published. Selection is based on "usefulness fur
professionals involved in organized family planning activ itiefi
in the United States."
The most frequently covered topics covered in this bi-
monthly 'government' publication are vasectomy, teenage
contraceptive programs, abortifacient drugs, Sangerite
philosophy, "unwanted children ', sex education, and the
poor and birth control.
The March issue of the Digest contained a large article
on "Prostaglandins: New Birth Control Hope "r
Headache": the July issue contained another entitled.
"Health and Social Impact of Legalized Abortion ": and the
Sept. issue evaluated Tietze and Lewit's study on the medical
complications of legal abortion. In the May issue under
"contraceptive practice" an evaluation of the Human Life
Foundation's Conference on Natural Family planning was
made. Of the five issues published between Jan. and Sept.
1972, the latter was the only reference made in the Digest to
regulation of family size by sexual continence based on the
natural rhythms of the body.
The Digest also publishes a want ad section for Planned
Parenthood affiliates at home and abroad and a few
governmental family planning agencies.
NOTE : Before taking any action regarding the
government financing of this publication, the Coalition plans
to offer the Dept. of HEW an opportunity to balance the
content of the Digest. The USCL therefore requests that Pro-
Life groups submit published articles on any of the topics
mentioned above to: Lynn C. Landman. Editor
F. P. Digest, Center for F. P. Programs
315 Madison Ave.. PP-WP. NY.Y. N.Y. 10022
FEDERAL AGENCY SPONSORS STERILIZATION CONFERENCE
The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID I has granted to the International Project of the Association for
Voluntary Sterilization, a contract of $2,000,000.00 for an international conference on voluntary sterilization as a potential
method of family planning and fertility limitation.
The four day conference, to be held in Geneva from Feb. 25 - March 1, 1973, "will provide the groundwork for an in-
ternational communications network of voluntary organizations, professional and governmental agencies, and other interested
groups."
The many aspects of the International Project involve public campaigns, training programs; the formation of an in-
ternational sterilization federation ; research and information and communication activities.
AID public tax dollars have in recent years been used to finance a numbe* of similar conferences and workshops including
(II a Johns Hopkins Conference on Population Dynamics 119651 121 a National Academy of Sciences Symposium on
Population Policiesl 19701 131 a gTant to support the general conference of the International Union of Scientific Study of
Population in London 1 1970) (41 the Third International Conference on Prostaglandins held by the N.Y. Academy of Sciences
(1971) (51 a grant to support a regional meeting of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in Korea ( 19651 161 a
grant in support of a 4-day international conference relating to Social Work and Population Dynamics and Family Planning.
(1969) (7) International Communication Seminar at U. of North Carolina (19681 (8) Financial support of World Assembly of
Youth (WAY) conferences to promote family planning (1969; 1970; 1971) (91 International Conferenc of Midwives. London
(1971) (10) Family Planning Seminars, PP-Chicago (1970:1971)
42
;oro
FEDERAL GOTCR.NMENT CONDUCTS "STOP THE STORK" CAMPAIGN
"Can Mass Media Advertising Increase Contraceptive Use?", was the subject of a mass media experiment in family
planning, conducted by the Family Planning Evaluation Project of Maternal and Child Health of the U. of North Carolina.
The 6 month, multi-media advertising campaign undertaken in four U.S. cities.-Columbus. Ohio, Memphis, Tennessee.
Altoona. Pa. and Jackson, Miss., - was financed by the Dept. of HE W's Health Services and Mental Health Administration and
the Rockefeller Foundation
In addition to covering all research costs, the Division of the Maternal and Child Health Service of HSMHA advanced the
project. $30,000 specifically for media plans and basic layouts developed by the J. W. Thompson Company.
The Rockefeller grant of $85,000 was used for actual production of advertisements for radio, t. v. magazine, and
newspaper ads. while the National Center for Family Planning Services kicked in $252,000 directly for funding family plan-
ning projects in the four cities for purchase of media time and space.
The Thompson Agency's STOP THE STORK ad, featuring a teenage couple necking on a park bench was directed at the
unmarried and the child-saturated married couple while the Robert Blake ads placed emphasis on married couples who want
children later. The ads were run in Life and Look magazines and on radio and t.v.
Conclusions of the mass media campaign indicated that generally it is not an effective means of increasing clinic attendence
or in increasing nonclinic sales of contraceptives. (Source-Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 4, No. 3 July 1972 Reprint
from P.P. at 30c per copy. I
Ed. Note-A national prolife delegation may want to investigate a Dept. of HEW grant involving the use of the mass media
to promote a pro-life mentality in the U. S.
NOTE. .ABC's TV "Population: Boom or Doom!" documentary made reference to this project involving the mass media
and birth control advertising.
COMPULSORY BIRTH CONTROL OF FEMALE WELFARE RECIPIENTS PROPOSED
109th General Assembly (State of Ohio)
Regular Session
1971-1972
H.B.No.512
Mr. Netzley
A BILL
To amend section 5107.03, and to enact section 3709.41 of the Revised Code to
make injections of a contraceptive drug an Aid to Dependent Children eligibility
requirement.
The contraceptive drug specified in Mr. Netzley 's bill was DEPO PROVERA, to be administered on "an every third
month treatment basis" to any person attempting to qualify for ADC support. No ADC child would be eligible for aid unless his
mother possessed a written certificate of pregnancy immunization from the Board of Health of a city or general health district.
Such immunizations could be administered by ( 1 ) a voluntary nonprofit PLANNED PARENTHOOD SERVICE, or (21 a
licensed physician.
DEPO-PROVERA is a registered drug of the Upjohn Company, Kalamazoo Michigan. In the April 1972 (Vol. 8, No. 41
issue of The Journal of Reproductive Medicine, Dr. T. J. Vecchio, of Upjohn's Medical Research Division outlines the
international experience in over 20,000 cases using DEPO-PROVERA for primarily three month regimens.
Among the complications listed by Dr. Vecchio were unpredictable patterns of bleeding, some complete amenorrhea, with
most women showing olito-amenorrhea i.e. sporadic-irregular menstrual cycles. A few cases required curettages to stop
hemorrhaging; others, supplemental dosages of oral estrogen; and there were six thrombotic episodes reported. The average
delay in return of fertility was five months.
(USCL Reprints No. 121 and No. 122- 40cl
POPULATION CONTROL AND FUTURE HOMEMAKERS OF AMERICA -
On Nov. 11th, UPI (N.Y.I ran a wire service feature on a survey on society and the family, conducted by the national
Future HomenuuVers of America IFHAI Public Relations Committee. The report was carried in the Nov. Journal of Home
Economics, published by the American Home Economics Association (AHEAI. The association and the U.S. Office of
Education (USOEI jointly sponsor FHA.
Among the areas of concern expressed by the 75 respondents, which supposedly "delivered a kind of consensus among the
FHA's half million members" were pollution, overpopulation, male and female roles, etc.
One of the selected replies aired by UPI on the subject of family planning was:
"My mother contributed more than her fair Bhare to the population explosion. I plan to bear no children as I feel there are
43
too many unwanted babies brought into the world and I can better help in other ways than through motherhood..."
Seven months prior to the survey release. Teen Times IMay-721 the official mouthpiece of the Future Homemakers of
America, which is funded by the American Economics Assoc, and the U.S. Office of Education ran a feature entitled, The
Population Liberation Crisis".
The introduction of the article is a hard sell for the N.Y. Times population supplement prepared by PP-WP and the
Population Crisis Committee from which Congresswoman Patsy Mink's (D-Hawaiil statement was taken and reprinted in full
in Teen Times.
In addition to the usual population control rhetoric, Mrs. Mink views the question of abortion as a matter of women's
rights rather than a population control issue. "Women seeking legalized abortion want the right of control over their own
bodies it makes more sense to prevent pregnancy that to seek its termination, but the right of termination must exist as a
human choice "
"...When we achieve population control, all society will benefit, but the women will win the most, with a new promise of
equality," Mrs. Mink concluded.
Recommended action by Future Homemakers included writing for the Times supplement ; and contributing some ideas
for classroom discussion of "this population crisis".
(FHA, National Hdqs. 2010 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036.1
POPULATION CONTROL AND THE MASS MEDIA -
In 1967, a series of Summer Workshops were held at the University of Chicago by the Community and Family Study
Center. The proceedings of these workshops were compiled by Donald Bogue into a soft-bound text entitled Mass Com-
munication and Motivation for Birth Control (Ed. note - the terms birth control and population control are used in-
terchangeably in the text.)
Funds for these workshops and the U. of Chicago's Population Control and Demographic projects and student programs
are derived from the following sources:
• Ford Foundation
• Population Council
• U.S. Agency for International Development
• U. S. Public Health Service
• U. S. National Institute
• Pan American Union
• OCED
• Pan American WHO
The Bogue compilation includes a student contribution, "A Sign for the Times" by Harry L. Levin I pgs. 315-323.1. Among
the suggestions made by Mr. Levin were-
1 1 1 Standardization of population control data into a language system similar to Fortran to analyze and develop input into
meaningful terms.
( 2 1 The harnessing of material profit in population control programming, i.e., an IID ("Instant Identification Device"!, a
simple symbol to be used by every population control institution in the state, nation and world.
131 A Demographic Computation Institute, designed to collect and analyze population control matters perhaps under the
U.N.
(41 A CEASE CORPS - the enlistment of recruits to carry forth the population control message to schools, colleges ect.
(51 IUD Holiday Centers - using medical traveling teams and facilities
(61 Catholics Unanimous or any Group Unanimous - the cultivation of Catholic and other groups who will support
government financing and action in population control field.
(71 A Birth Control Products version of Avon Products or Fuller Brush.
(8) Emphasis on commercial aspects of birth control products.... "the sale of contraceptive products offers the largest mark-
up, fastest turn-over of inventory, and largest net profit of any item other than prescription items."
(91 A population-birth control version of Dear Abby!
(101 Photo, entertainment or sports ticket incentives for Planned Parenthood visit.
(Ill Development of youth indoctrination material similar to Dr. Seuss stories.. ."Jack and Jill Went on the Pill", the
creation of early reading and primary grade books on population-birth control theme
Order from Community and Family Study Center, 1 126 E. 59th St., Chicago, 37. 111.
44
MAUDE IS A FRAUD - The L'SCL joins with Women Concerned for the Unborn Child and our Pro-Life colleague
around the nation in a one-year boycott of all sponsors of MAUDE, CBS's comedy of liberal theology which featured on Nov
14th and 21st, an abortion-sterilization-population control trilogy.
Sponsors, listed below have been notified of the USCL decision :
Lipton Tea. Office of the President, Thomas J. Lipton. Englewood Cliffs. N.J.. (17632
Krito-Lay Office of the President, Dallas. Tex.
Norelco, 100 East 42nd Street, New York, N.Y. 10017
General Electric. 570 Lexington Avenue, New York. N.Y. 10022
Mattel Toys. 5150 Rosecrans Boulevard. Hawthorne, Calif., 90025
Breck. Berdcn Avenue, Wayne. J.J. 07470
and Alberto Culver, 2525 Armitage Avenue, Melrose Park, III., 60160.
NOTE IN LIGHT OF THE FACT
THAT THE STATE DEPARTMENT VIA AID
HAS GRANTED MILLIONS OF TAX
DOLLARS AT HOME AND ABROAD TO
COMMITTED ANTI-LIFE GROUPS. CON-
FERENCES SUCH AS THOSE SPONSORED
BY THE INTERNATIONAL PLANNED
PARENTHOOD FEDERATION. AND HAS
FINANCED SEMINARS ON ABORTIFACIENT
RESEARCH. THE U.S.C.L. HAS BEGUN
INITIAL PROCEEDINGS TO OBTAIN A
MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR AID-STATE DEPT.
GRANT FOR THE PURPOSE OF HOLDING
AN INTERNATIONAL COALITION FOR LIFE
CONFERENCE WHICH WILL FEATURE
SPECIALISTS IN A WIDE VARIETY OF
FIELDS RELATING TO FETAL DEVELOP-
MENT: REPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOR: THE
MEDICAL. LEGAL. SOCIAL AND ETHICAL
ASPECTS OF ABORTION. STERILIZATION,
AND ENTHANASIA AND OTHER RELATED
AREAS. DETAILS TO FOLLOW.
POPULATION CONTROL, ABORTION,
AND
THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
In November, Dr. Cynthia Wedel, president of the
National Council of Churches, told an interviewer in
Michigan that abortion is not a matter to be handled by the
criminal law or the courts. "Abortion should be decided by
the woman and a doctor," Dr. Wedel said, "The length of
time before the abortion - none of these things ought to be
handled by law. This is just not a criminal situation."
iSource - National Catholic Register - Nov. 12, 1972).
It should also be noted that Dr. Wedel sits in the
population control camp of the Population Institute - the
troika which, also features Harold Bostrom lof the Victor-
Bostrom Fund, the fund raising arm of Planned Paren-
thoodl. Rodney Shaw, Assoc, for Voluntary Sterilization,
Willard Wirtz. Congress for Optimum Population and Rev.
John ' O'Brien, population control advocate from Notre
Dame, and Bill Ryerson, of ZPG,
The Population Institute's Population Communication
Center. 1475 Riverside Dr. NY 100271 faffed by David
Poindexter and Casey Derrick feeds the mass media their
population control pabulum on a regular basis while the
Institute's Student Project, (Population Institute, 100
Maryland Ave., NE, Washington, DC 200021 caters to
youth and the Institute's Ethics Project, (Wesley Theological
Seminary, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington.
D.C. 200161 to "ethicicists, theologians, and population
experts".
The Population Institute is currently offering a
$5,000.00 award for the best 30 minute script on population
control produced on prime-time television between Sept.
1972 and June. 1973.
PROSTAGLANDIN-ABORTIFACIENT RESEARCH
AND AID
In the January, 1972 Health Services and Mental
Health Administration Report IDept. of HEW, Vol. 87, No.
1-4 Pgs. 41-421 an anonymous article entitled, "Birth
Control Method Tried Alter the Fact" describes federally
sponsored abortifacient research and clinical testing at tin' I
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
According to the HSMHA report, the work of Dr. S.
Bergstrom at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm in the
induction of abortion using prostaglandins, in the late
1960's, stimulated the interest of U. of N.C. researchers.
"In August 1970, a research team at the university,
headed by Dr. Charles Hendricks, chairman. Department of
obstetrics and gynecology at the University'9 Memorial
Hospital began using prostaglandins as abortifacients."
In 1971, 46 experimental abortions were carried out on
women 6-20 week9 pregnant.
45
"Besides being effective abortifacienls, prostaglandins
were found to bring on menstruation prior to implantation of
the egg which normally occurs about six weeks (?l after
intercourse."
Team researchers Dr. William Brenner and Dr.
Frederick Kroncke see prostaglandins as being superior to
other birth control methods.
The report article concludes, "Until recently, most of
the funds for the prostaglandin research have come directly
from the U. of N.C., Dept. of Ob.-GYN. with some
assistance from the Upjohn Company, which supplies
prostaglandins to the investigators. Since mid-July 1971,
money has also been received from a grant from the Agency
for International Development to the North Carolina
Population Center."
USCL Reprint No. 120 -30c
The N.C. Population Center was established in 1966 by
a $268,000 grant from AID to provide training facilities and
consultative services to AID for development and im-
plementation of population programs. (Project 031.11-570-
814; csd-10591. Between the period of 1965-1971. the
university has received more than $12 million in AID
population funding including; $1.6 million for population
program designs; 3.1 million for the establishment of an
international network of field trial centers to evaluate new
methods of fertility control INCLUDING THK SUP-
PORT OF PROSTAGLANDIN FIELD TRIAL
STUDIES.
In addition. AID grants for prostaglandin-abortifacient
research have been awarded to Worcester Foundation ($2.9
million I; U. of Wisconsin ($227,0001 Washington
University ($293,0001 and Makerere U. in Unganda
($821,000).
According to AID's Office of Population, all research
and testing of "family planning drugs and devices" carried
out by AID are in keeping with Title X of the Foreign
Assistance Act.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE. Dept. of HEW, Office of the Secretary.
The U. S. Coalition for Life and its Pro- Life associates have been invited by the Dept. of HEW, Special Projects Division,
to submit the names of candidates to be considered for appointment to the Child Development Advisory Committee. The
following information is needed in order to consider a candidate for appointment:
1. Name
2. Home address (If student, a parent's address!
3. Business address (If student, a college mailing address)
4. Date and place of birth
5. Education and or Training
6. In Detail - Professional background or Community Contributions
7. In Detail - Special interests as they relate to Professional Background, Community Contributions, or Education and
Training.
NOTE : Recommendations and endorsement information should be transmitted separately.
ACTION LINE
Pro- Life agencies as well as individuals are asked to submit this resume information for committee evaluation of candidates
for appointment to the Child Development National Advisory Committee:
TO: Director, Special Projects
Child Development Committee
Dept. of HEW
Office of the Secretary
Washington, D.C. 20201
Additional information on the authority, structure, and functions of the Committee are available on request from the Dept.
of HEW.
The U. S. Coalition for Life was created to serve as a
national and international clearing house for Pro-Life
organizations and individuals seeking information and
research materials in the areas of population control,
euthanasia, genetic engineering, abortion and related areas.
Its primary function is one of service rather than
organization or control.
The U.S.C.L. Reprint Service is designed to provide
documentation and resource materials for the Pro-Life
Movement. Costs include both copying and postage ex-
penses. All reprints are to be used as study copies only. In
case of copyrighted materials, permission must be obtained
from the publisher or author directly, except for brief quotes
which may be used with proper credit.
Subscription Rate is $3.00 a year which includes both
the Newsletter and special USCL mailings relating to current
areas of controversy or Pro-Life interest.
Editor - Randy Engel
46
Vol. 2 No. 3
May, 1973
Mrs. Randy Engel. Editor
Published by
U.S. Coalition for Life
Box 315, Export, Pa. 15632
Fetal Experimentation
The U.S. Coalition for Life in conjunction with
Women Concerned for the In born Child filed written
testimony on human experimentation involving unborn
children and clinic patients with the Senate Health Sub-
committee on Human Experimentation on March 6, 1973
after being refused seating at the public hearings
scheduled late in February and the first week in March.
Dr Lawrence Horowitz, charged with hearing
scheduling, stated that seats for oral presentations had been
booked months in advance and that the final day of
hearings, i.e. March 8th was reserved for "world experts".
Furthermore, Dr. Horowitz stated that the committee
would not be investigating abortion or any aspect thereof
and that Coalition testimony relating to the use of poor,
clinic patients for abortifacient experimentation was not
relevant to topics being discussed at that time. Another
government official said that the hearings called by Sen.
Edward Kennedy were simply restricted to those issues the
Senator wished made public and that anything related to
abortion was not applicable at this time, including ex-
perimentation on the unborn.
One month later. Capital newspapers exploded with
the news that the National Institutes of Health (HEW!
have been deliberating the issue of experimentation on
children bom alive via abortion for more than a year, and
were considering the possibility of adopting guidelines on
such experimentation similar to those approved in England.
On April 18, the NIH stated publicly that the
government agency which is the prime source of funds for
American research laboratories, will not support "research
on live, aborted human fetuses."
77ir Coalition has documented evidence to the con-
trary. We know that there arc numerous medical-research
(enters in the U.S. which receive NIH funds, that are using
live aborted babies for a wide variety of experimental
purposes, and that NIH personnel have been sent abroad to
Finland, Sweden and elsewhere to conduct experiments
using such children.
Clearly, a full, public congressional investigation into
this matter is necessary since it is unlikely that the NIH can
be counted on to make such disclosures on such ex-
perimentation, any more than it is able to disclose the
millions of tax dollars it is currently awarding for abor-
tifacient research and clinical testing.
Action Line - Write to your federal legislators and ask
them to support a Congressional investigation of such
experimentation including "research" on live aborted
babies and abortifacient experimental drugs which turn
wombs into tombs. The Coalition has wired Sen. Kennedy
asking that he set a date for public hearings on these and
related topics by his Senate Health Subcommittee. Also,
President Nixon has been asked to take action on
withholding NIH funds until such time as the agency sets
down specific guidelines ruling OUT the use of live aborted
babies for experimentation purposes by research labs and
medical schools receiving federal funds.
The Coalition has prepared a packet of materials on
fetal experimentation in the U.S. and England and Europe,
for the use of pro-life groups. Cost per packet is $5.00 to
cover postage and printing costs.
TAX-FUNDS TO UPJOHN COMPANY FOR
ABORTIFACIENT RESEARCH
Portions of the millions of dollars of federal funds
being used to develop "effective and safe" abortifacient
drugs which will meet FDA requirements have found their
way to the Upjohn Pharmaceutical Company via the U.S.
National Institute of Health (NIH). Population
Research, an inventory of federally sponsored programs,
fiscal year 1971, clearly documents this fact.
For example in 1969, John Johnston of the Upjohn
Company was awarded a four year contract from the NIH
for prostaglandin research in new developments of "fertility
regulation techniques". Total project cost: $200,587.00.
In 1971, Kenneth Kirton of Upjohn received $42,913
fur research relating to "Quantification of Prostaglandins
(monkeys, humansl."
The Upjohn Company has jusi petitioned the Food
and Drug Administration IFDAI to ok the use of
prostaglandins as abortifacient agents. An FDA agent told
the Coalition that they are currently studying English
research and data on the commercial sale of prostaglandins
as abortifacient agents since England approved use of the
drug late last year.
Other contracts, of immediate interest to prolife
researchers and federal legislators, include:
( 1 ) $24,604 - Black resistance to Family Planning Cen-
ters, M.F. Roseman, Moorehouse College, Atlanta, Ga.
(21 $249,735 to a Yugoslavian teaching hospital to
compare medical effects of induced abortion by suction and
curretage.
(3) $49,998 to I.M. Cushner of Johns Hopkins for clinical
testing of prostaglandins during first trimester.
(41 $107,148 to W.C. Oppel of Johns Hopkins U. for
behavioral study of "therapeutic abortions - with special
reference to teenagers." •
47
(51 GOALS AND CONDITIONS oR'OPULATION
CONTROL - An Nfh six year grant of $337,652 to
Kingsley Davis of the U. of California 1 1 69 - 1 741
When writing for this information, ask for HEW
Publication No. NIH 72-133. No Charge. Order from:
Center for Population Research, NIH, Dept. of HEW.
Bethesda. Md.
I PJOHN AND DEPO-PROVERA
Depo-Provera. a proven carcinogen in animals, not
approved by the FDA as a contraceptive, is patented by the
I'pjohn Company.
Country profiles, publication of Rockefeller's Population
Council. Feb. 1973 issue on Nigeria by David Lucas and
Gabisti Williams states that women attending Family
Planning Council clinics who do not want to have any more
children are encouraged to try the injectible steroid con-
traceptive (Depo Proveral. which is also now available.
(p.9l
Depo-Provera has also been used in Chilian studies at the
U. of Chile as well as clinical testing in the McCormick
Hospital. Chiang Mai, Thailand. Women in the rice fields
of Sarawak, Malaysia are Depo-Provera guinea pigs under
the guidance of Canadian Dr. Robert McClure of Toronto,
who also promotes sterilization. iSource: International
Planned Parenthood News, Oct. 1972 and Jan. 19731.
AID
AID's War on Hunger features abortifacient
research. The research activities of Suhanali Magan Karim
of Uganda were featured in the AID publication War on
Hunger. Vol. V No. 9, Sept. 1971.
Dr. Karim, a leader is prostaglandin-abortifacient
research stated that by 1975 use of such drugs would be
very common. "Prostaglandins are now readily synthesiaed
and as such will become available at a low cost - a few
pennies per use." He described it as an "after-the-fact"
approach. Dr. Karim sees abortion as a means of
population control as present religious and medical
restrictions change.
Dr. Karim's "research" takes place at Makerere
University in Kampala. Uganda. His "research" which
includes prostaglandin abortions past 13 weeks gestation is
financed by the American tax payer via an AID contract
(No. 931 1 75705401 for project period 6/7 1 - 6/74.
Ten clinic patients, five Caucasian and five Negro,
ages 15 to 27 years, and all in their second trimester of
pregnancy were aborted by the administration of Intra-
Amniotic Prostaglandin F2d with a 40% success rate
based on the 24 hour criterion.
The study was conducted by D.C Leslie, M.I), and
Leonard E. Laufe, M.D„ F.A.C.O.G. of the
Reproductive Counseling Institute, West Penn
Hospital in Pittsburgh and reported in the Dec. 19T2
issue of The Journal of Reproductive Medicine.
Side effects of the prostaglandin "therapy" in this
series included nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, flushing,
pyrexia, headache, bronchospasm. Nausea and
vomiting occurred in all patients with an average of 2
to 3 episodes per patient.
If the prcgnanl^termination did not occur within
24 hours, additional methods including uterine
evacuation and saline injections uere carried out.
Curettage was performed on all patients aborted
during the first 24 hours.
Of the ten patients "chosen" from the clinic
population, three were minors 1 17 or under!. The
report brings into focus the problem of using clinic
patients in general, and using minors in particular, for
abortifacient experimental research. The Coalition has
the matter under further investigation at both the state
and federal level.
OEO MAILING LISTS PROVIDED TO
POPULATION CONTROL AGENCY
Since May of 1971, the Office of Economic Op-
portunity IOEOI has provided over $100,000 to
Population Services, Inc. of Chapel Hill, N.C. for the
purpose of increasing use of condoms among sexually
active, young, unmarried low-income males in urban and
rural settings.
Population Services, Inc., directed by Dr. Timothy
Black of England, a postgraduate of the UNC Chapel Hill
Population Center, and Philip Harvey, former director for
CARE in India, has a tax-exempt status to qualify for
governmental "research funds", while its twin agency -
Population Planning Associates-serves as the retail firm
doing the buying and selling of birth control devices.
Using OEO "anti-poverty" funds. Population Services
directly contacted over 25,500 individuals between the
ages of l.t and 20. Local OEO Community Action
Agencies and commercial sources provided the
tnailintf lists.
The letters of the unsolicited mailings included such
questions as "Has one of your friends made a girl pregnant
recently?" and reassures the young male that condoms help
prevent babies as well as V.D. Also included in the mailings
is provision for obtaining a condom stamp coupon worth
$1.00 from a North Carolina outlet.
According to an informed source in Washington, D.C,
of the 25,000 young men contacted, 2,260 responded
favorably and were sent materials via unmarked envelopes
while 86 requested no further materials be sent. At no time
was parental consent solicited for minors.
The OEO grant to Population Services Inc. in 1971
totaled $61,905 while the 1972 grant totaled $47,066. The
latter OEO funds are intended to expand work among the
"target" populations" with emphasis placed on reaching
coaches and other supervisory "outreach" personnel.
Information gleaned from the "research" will be refined in
order to "establish a model which can be used elsewhere."
A proposed program ending in 1974 with the OEO carrying
the TOTAL costs for Population Services. Inc. - services
which will cost the American tax payer some $152,274!
Letters asking that OEO funds to Population Services,
Inc. be immediately impounded and calling for a
Congressional investigation of OEO "family planning"
programs in general may be directed to : Howard Phillips,
Office of Economic Opportunity, Dept. of HEW,
Washington, D.C. 20506, with carbons to your
Congressman and Senators, and to President Nixon.
48
PLANNED I'Wtl \lll(M>|^lll \\ Mil
Planned Parenthood Association, Chicago Area,
an affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of
America. Inc. (PP-WPl, is a family planning-population
control training center with hoth national and international
programs funded by HEW and US-AID. at a cost to
taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
Costs for non-Planned Parenthood or government
financed participants range from $12.00 to $15.00 per
person per training day.
This federally -funded enterprises's prototype training
program includes the following:
General Training - studies of the "Contraceptive
Movement" and the "Population Crisis" ...
Administration and Organization - Organizing,
developing, establishing, maintaining and evaluating
family planning programs ....
Medical - Methods of contraception, male and female
sterilization, and the training of para-medical personnel
including "counselors for abortion referral and for
standard clinics" as well as pregnancy testing and other
laboratory procedures....
Communications - Utilizing mass media for opinion
formation and the reinforcement process of the public
Male Education - male sexuality programs geared to
youth....
Research - Medical, biological and contraceptive research
in U.S. and abroad
Education - Developing community programs
"TRAINING FOR ABORTION COUNSELING AND
REFERRAL COUNSELING". AN OVERVIEW OF
THE LEGAL AND MORAL ASPECTS OF ABORTION
IN THE U.S. : removal of sexual inhibitions and barriers to
human sexual communications by "demythologizing"
sexual hangups....
( Training and Education Dept., PP-Chicago, 185 North
Wabash. Chicago, III., 606011
TEEN SCENE
"Teen Scene" is a special youth oriented program
operated by Planned Parenthood of Chicago. A substantial
portion of its funding comes through a grant from the Dept.
of HEW to the Illinois Family Planning Coordinating
Council.
Under HEW Grant No. O5-H-O03O1 173371, Teen
Scene received:
FY 1971 -$69,000 FY 1972 -$190,000
Teen Scene is located at 185 N. Wabash Av., home of
the Chicago P.P.
The objectives of Teen Scene as outlined in their
brochure "Straight Sex Talk for Teens" include:
1. To provide a non-judgmental atmosphere in which
teenagers may explore human sexuality through education
and dialogue.
2. To eliminate unwanted pregnancies by making effective
means of family planning, including contraception and
voluntary abortion, available to all.
3- ,. < Ibjectives also involve exploring attitudes, establishing
ongoing model programs, evaluation of programs and in-
service training programs.
Office of I'opul^Pfi Affairs in a letter dated Nov. 1, 1972,
HEW funded activities of "Teen Scene" include pregnancy
testing and contraceptive information to eligible
cnadidates. Pregnant teens are referred to a "Teen Scene"
social worker for discussion, but not counseling on abor-
tion. If a "Teen Scene" client wants abortion counseling
she is referred to CARES and no followup of such patients
is made by "Teen Scene", stated Dr. Shultz.
Now it just so hap/H'ns that the main CARES office
i Cooperative Abortion Referral and Evaluation' Ser-
vice! is located at the exact same address, I8.~> \.
If abash, as Teen Scene and Chicago P.P.!
Established in July. 1971, CARES operates a five-
state abortion referral service which shuttles (prior to Jan.
22. 19731 women from Illinois. Indiana. Michigan. Ohio
and Wisconsin to New York at a package deal rate of about
$145-$350. incl. transportation for a legal abortion.
In Teen Scene Handbook under the title. Pregnancy
Testing, individual counseling by TEEN SCENE
counselors DO IN FACT include making plans, for among
other things, "legal safe abortion referrals". Dr. Shultz's
comments not withstanding.
Furthermore, a pre-arranged phone call to Teen Scene
in the Spring of 1972 verified the fact that Teen Scene is
also involved directly in abortion arrangements. The caller,
an 18 year old boy contacted Teen Scene to arrange an
abortion for his 15 year old girl friend. He was told that the
must make his own plane reservation on a flight which
would be pin-pointed by Teen Scene and that he must bring
in a signed notarized statement of responsibility by a 21
year old (any 21 year old I. Teen Scene said they would
arrange for a limousine to meet the girl at the airport in
N.Y., take her directly to the clinic where the abortion
would be performed and she would then be transported
back to Chicago the same day.
In the meantime, while tax-payers fund the abortion-
fornication center of Planned Parenthood, Birthright of
Chicago suffers financial hardship and must compete with
HEW funding - YOUR funding.
Action Line - Write your federal legislators and ask
them to provide you with specific details on Teen Scene
including an audit for the period 1971-1972 outlining how
HEW funds were spent. Request that matching funds be
made available to Birthright Chicago. Ask if he or she
would initiate or support a Congressional investigation of
such programs as Teen Scene in which abortion is clearly
stated as a means of family planning.
USCL will provide all the necessary documentation.
Please include $2.50 to cover copying and postage. Ask for
Teen Scene Packet.
INVASION OF PRIVACY ISSUE
Two recent events involving, tiie, Dept. of Health,
Education and Welfare funded - "family planning"
programs, bring into sharp fopus the further erosion of
marital privacy by government agencies.
In P.P.'s publication. Family Planning Per-
spectives, Vol. 5, No. 1 Winter 1973, details are provided
on Tennessee's Statewide Data System for Family Planning
begun in 1970. The system consists of centralized computer
49
processing of individual patient m.^B I>;i>»mI on th<-
patient -oriented family planning data system developed in
Atlanta. In Tennessee, staff from all 95 local county health
departments have had to be taught the new data system, via
teach-in sessions.
Under this data system, both patient's name and a
unique ID number are recorded on the data form in order
to "evaluate continuity of care". In Tennessee, the
patients number is her Social Security number. When a
new patient doesn't have a S.S. number, the clinic staff is
instructed to apply for one and to give the patient a tem-
porary number. Data information includes: patient
identification, clinic identification, date of visit! s I
METHOD OF CONTRACEPTION, and information on
subsequent visit.
Under this data system, each patient's record folder is
filed at the local clinic. Patients missing appointments can
be easily tracked down for formal or "informal" visits by
home visiting teams under the computer's direction, and
guidance.
Collected data are utilized for a number of purposes
including "community education", and generation of life
tables as well providing data on "fertility rates and
illegitimacy rates, and designation future target groups."
"Since each patient is UNIQUELY identified no
matter in which clinic she has received services, and has an
up-to-date longitudinal history file of all visits to the family
planning din, it becomes a computer programming task to
extract the information in a format appropriate for life-
table calculations." (pp. 50-54).
The second incident involves a National Birth Survey
conducted by the Public Health Service of HEW with the
approval of local State Health departments.
Information from the survey is being collected on a sample
of approximately 7,400 mothers of live births who
represent the nearly 3.7 million women having deliveries
(luring I "72.
Each physician and each patient in the survey was sent
a questionnaire about the patient's recent pregnancy.
The survey cover letter to physicians includes the
name, address, date of delivery, name and sex of child
and a survey number, and assurance that all the material
given to the government will be kept "completely con-
fidential", and used for statistical purposes. Doctors failing
to fill out the form receive a followup letter from the
Division of Vital Statistics charged with carrying out the
survey. Neither the attending physician or the patient
require the consent of the other to reply to the survey.
National Birth Survey includes:
I. Information about this mother.. incl. number of live
births, abortions etc.
II. Prenatal and Postpartum Care of mother.. .incl.
number of pre-natal visits, nature of post-partum and
mother's CONTRACEPTIVE HISTORY including what
method used if any.
III. Name, Address, and phone number and date of
survey completion with any notes and comments, by
physician or patient.
Concerned tax-payers who ultimately fund these
programs may wish to bring these matters to the attention
ol their congressman and senators. The Coalition position is
that Congress shoiil^^fcce the necessary action to forbid the
use of Social Sectu^ry numbers as a means of patient
identification for medical treatment surveys and data
taking, and prohibit the federal government from soliciting
confidential information which violates the privacy of the
physician-patient relationship, and or other relationships
including that of parent and child.
Note: Medical World News. 4-13-73 in Big Brother \>
'Dr. Feelgood' notes that the ACLU. AMA, and Phar-
maceutical Manufactures Assoc, are protesting the new
N.Y. Controlled Substances Act requiring drug
prescriptions (containing name of patient, addresses etc.) in
be fed into programmed computers manned by the state
health department, as an invasion of patient-doctor privacy.
ROCKEFELLER FILM PACKET BATTLE RAGES
ON -
On March 22, 1973, members of the U.S. Coalition for
Life and allied pro-life groups were scheduled to meet with
Dr. Louis Hellman of the Office of Population Affairs, Mr.
John Fuller of the Office of Education and Dr. Walter
Bogan of the Office of Environmental Education to review
the "population packet" originally designed to accompany
the Rockefeller film, which was to be distributed by HEW
until pro-life popular pressure forced its withdrawal.
The packets containing student and teacher film
guides and other population teaching aides were prepared
by the Population Reference Bureau and its associates with
tax-funds from the Office of Education.
The meeting with HEW officials was cancelled,
however, when Dr. Hellman and John Fuller informed the
Coalition that the packets were not yet prepared for
evaluation, the final drafts having not as yet been com-
pleted. Coalition Director Randy Engel received assurances
that she would be contacted as soon as the drafts were
ready, prior to their printing for distribution. Casper
Weinberger was then informed of the cancellation as well as
the OE agreement with the Coalition.
Early in April, the Coalition was informed by a federal
employee in the family planning field that the 80 page
teaching guide, and also a student guide, had been on his
desk for some time, where upon the Coalition immediately
wired Weinberger asking for a meeting with him in the
presence of Dr. Hellman and other OE officials involved in
the controversy. Letters in support of the meeting with the
Secretary of HEW may be sent to directly to Casper
Weinberger. Office of the Secretary. Dept. of Hew.
Washington. D.C.
AMERICA WILL ROCK CHAIRS, NOT CRADLES
An HEW-funded grant to the Center for the Study of
Democratic Institutions for the purpose of analyzing
"long range social futures" for the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare utilization in planning for health
care delivery in the coming decades examines the social
implications of an ever-increasing aging population in the
United States.
The full report, co-authored by Center Senior Fellow
and project director Harvey Wheeler and R. J. Carlson was
50
completed in December, while a Ix^Hcngth publication is
scheduled for 1973. ^^
In their February, 1973, Center Report, a number of
capsule conclusions are listed under various sub-sitles.
Under the sub-title People: the Center stud) suggests
that in the coming decades few couples "ill have more than
two children and many will have none. ...that there will be a
drive for negative growth thai our youth base will
shrink.. ..that qualit \ of | >u I >l i< ■ sen ices will deteriorate if the
talents of growing numhers of elderly are not utilized
that family planning will mean planning for the elderly, not
children and that a significant portion of the
population may. at any given moment, be under the in-
fluence of mind-altering drugs
Under the sub-title, Medical: the ('enter studv
suggests that amniocentesis might facilitate effective
treatment of the genetically defective the appearance of
cloning and mood-altering drugs on the horizon a rise
of general physical and emotional disability due to
prolonged life spans of an aging population.
I hher information included under Politics and
Government, Culture and Ethics, Education and Places
highlights the problems of a nation who will be preoccupied
with rocking chairs rather than cradles in the 21st century.
A.I.I).
Population Report is a publication of the Population
Information Program of George Washington University
Medical Center, a new population control brainchild of the
I S. Agency for International Development.
Administrator for the program is P.T. Piotrow, Ph.D.,
Secretary of the Population Crisis Committee, policy
researcher for the Rockefeller Commission and editor of the
Victor- Bostrom Fund Report IV-B -F is the fund raising
arm of Planned Parenthood I.
Areas of new developments in family planning are
reported in a regular series of reports dealing with each of
the recognized birth control methods in the following
categories :
A. Steroidal contraceptives
B. Intrauterine devices
C. Sterilization, female
D. Sterilization, male
E. Rhythm
F. Pregnancy Termination
(i. Prostaglandins
H. Local Methods of Fertility Control
I. Experimental Methods of Fertility Control
Editor's Note - Prostaglandin "Therapy" has not
hen approved l>> the FD \. and is still classified as an
experimental procedure to induce abortions in various
stages of pregnane} .
Copies of Population Reports mav be obtained upon
request from Population Information Program. 201)1 S.
Street, N.W., Washington. DC 20009.
Federal (, overrent Mandates Complaince With HR-
1: Parental And States' Rights Usurped
The Clearinghouse Review is a publication of the
National Clearinghouse for Uegal Services funded by the
Office of Economic Opportunity, and Northwestern
University.
The November. 1472 issue of the Review contains an
article by attorney Alan Charles entitled "Enforcing Legal
Rights to Family Planning and Abortion" followed by a
Dei-.. I<)72 article "H.R.I: Changes in Family Planning
Requirements. Every pro-lifer should immediately obtain a
copy of these publications from the NCLS, Northwestern
School of Law. 710 N. Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, III.
606 1 1 . ">0c per copy. Also a copy of the Senate Committee
Report on the Social Security Amendments of 1072. S.
Rep. No. 92-30, 92nd Congress., 2d Sess. 11072).
With the Senate passage of H.R.I, Title IV, Aid to
Families With Dependent Children IAFDCI and Title
XIX, Medicaid programs have undergone significant
changes.
As clearly stated in the Senate Amendment Revision
Report, ALL states are required to make a particular effort
to provide family planning services to minors...."who have
never had children but who can be considered to be sexually
active". Requirements for parental consent are INVALID.
Services must be provided by states without regard to
marital status, age or parenthood. Furthermore, the poor
should receive Medicaid payments for abortion since to do
otherwise would descriminate against them, says attorney
Charles.
Federal matching funds for family planning
services are now available to states at the rate of 90%.
"In view of the stricter. ..more definitive requirements
in H.R.I, states should not be allowed to ignore and avoid
their statutory duty as they have been doing successfully for
the past five years, " says attorney J. B. Stern. If they do,
they will lose their federal funding. *
Federal C-O Amendment Nullified By Javits
Amendment
No sooner had Sen. Frank Church (D.Ida.) in-
troduced a conscientious objector amendment to the ex-
tension of the Public Health Service Act prohibiting
abortion, sterilization, coercion of medical facilities and
personnel than Sen. Jacob Javits (R.N.Y.) introduced a
second amendment which reads as follows:
"...Such hospitals or other health care institutions
(that is. one receiving Federal funds), shall not discriminate
in the employment, promotion, extension of staff or other
privileges or termination of employment of any physician or
other health care personnel on the basis of their personal
religious or moral convictions regarding abortion or
sterilization or their participation in such procedures." Hiis
amendment was approved along with the Church amend-
ment. Result: Nullification of Church amendment. (See
detailed debate on amendment in the Congressional Record
of March 22nd between Senator Pasture of R.I. and Javits
of N.Y.I.
51
Florence Criltenlon Aboritorium is pVKntly gearing up
for an estimated kill ratio of between 7200-9600 unborn
per year.
The new extermination service carried out in con-
junction with Pregnancy Counseling Service, Inc. will
augment existing services at the Crittenton Hastings House
in Brighton. Mass. thanks to a seed grant of $100,000 from
the Scaife Foundation of Pittsburgh, (T. Mellon and Sons).
All abortions will be carried out by licensed
gynecologists affiliated with six local hospitals, or under
their guidance. Clients whose pregnancy is greater than 12
weeks gestation or have medical contraindications
prohibiting out-patient precedures will be referred to one of
the local teaching hospitals.
According to the Pregnancy Counseling Service, two
operating rooms can handle a MINIMUM of 20 abortions
a day. five days a week. At a charge of $200 per procedure,
the gross annual income will be about $1,000,000 per year
(based on 5000 abortions).
"The development of this program could establish a
precedent in meeting the needs of the people, and serve as a
PROTOTYPE for other Florence Crittenton Leagues
around the nation for broadening their horizons." (em-
phasis added).
MARCH FOR LIFE OR DEATH?
A policy letter currently circulated by the National
Foundation-MARCH OF DIMES states that legal
abortions are outside the purview of the Foundation and
that "the decision to terminate or not terminate a
pregnancy is solely a parental decision."
"The National Foundation is not authorized to direct
that decision and further, we believe it should not be
directed by any individual scientist, physician, or coun-
selor the foundation shall not indulge in lobbying with
governmental bodies neither the foundation nor its
component chapters finances abortions or abortion
research."
Background — Abortion Symposium
On October 13-14, 1970, the Committee on Social
Issues of the American Society of Human Genetics
sponsored a Symposium, "Intrauterine Diagnosis and
Selective Abortion" at Indianapolis, Indiana. The
proceedings of the meeting were published in the March of
Dimes Foundation's Original Article Series, Vol. 7, No.
5. April 1971.
The use of fetal flesh and normal amniotic fluid
samples obtained from the products of pregnanoy ter-
mination to develop expertise in the cultivation of amniotic
fluid cells and for accurate assessment of human fetal data
was discussed by Michael M. Kaback, M.D. Researchers
involved in the X project include staff of the NIH (National
Institutes of Health I and the U.S. Public Health Service.
The United Cerebral Palsy Research and
Educational Foundation. Inc. of New York City
has already supported similar research using live
babies ■■ byproducts of abortion — in an attempt
to isolate attenuated rubella-vaccine virus from
human products of conception and uterine
cervix.
/IWi
. . . .According l^kwn abstract which appeared in
the May 18, 1972 New England Journal of
Medicine, 35 women, certified for legal abortion,
were vaccinated with the live rubella virus and
subsequently aborted by hysterotomy 13) and
curettage 151.
.... "After repeated washings with balanced salt
solution these SURGICAL. SPECIMENS (em-
l>hasis added) were homogenized in a ten-broeck
tissue grinder.. .tissue suspensions were similarly
prepared from placental and fetal specimens and
from segments of extra-embryonic membrane.
Most of the samples, obtained by hysterotomy,
were delivered to the laboratory still surrounded
by intact membranes. Repeated washings with
balanced salt solutions were performed before
and after dissection," the report stated.
Dr. Henry Nadler, in Indications for Am-
niocentesis, stated that the physician undertaking am-
niocentesis to detect a genetic disorder prenatally must be
committed to providing "therapy" if the results indicate an
abnormality and the parents wish termination of the
pregnancy. This committment would include abortion
referral if the obstetrician was not performing the abortion.
Similarly, Dr. Orlando J. Miller, in Discussion of
Symposium Papers, greets with excitement the possibility
of detecting and diagnosing serious untreatable, genetic
disorders, aborting these fetuses, and thus preventing the
birth of many individuals who would have been doomed to
severe mental retardation or other mental or physical
disorders.
Another article listed in the Original Article Series is
the Psychosocial Aspects of Selective Abortion by Dr.
E. Lieberman, who insists that abortion be a matter bet-
ween a woman and her physician. Dr. Lieberman is author
of "Informed Consent for Parenthood", in which he states
that until our society does a good deal more to aid the
handicapped children "it is too much to ask women to carry
their pregnancies to term unmindful of possible or probable
fetal damage."
"In the meantime, the prevention of unwanted
pregnancy, including abortion when necessary, is more
than mere prevention. It is an enhancement of life, and it
supports the right of every child to be reared by someone
who cares."
Additional articles in the Series make reference to the
identification of genetically defective children and "their
selective abortion", the difficulties of aborting women in
the second trimester of pregnancy and public health im-
plications if intrauterine diagnosis and selective abortion.
The U.S. Coalition is not only concerned about the
anti-life company the National Foundation is keeping, but
also the awarding of grants to pro-abortion physicians.
For example, the 1973 directory of the foundation
includes a $25,474.00 research grant to Charles J. Epstein,
M.D. of the U. of California, San Francisco.
According to Mary Livacich. Chairman. Right to Life
of Tulare County. Dr. Epstein has stated for publication
that he will not go through with an amniocentesis test
unless he has a verbal commitment from the mother that
52
she will go through with an atmion if he so advises.
<Tim,<s-Delta. 1-20-73. RA)
A large number of foundation grants have been
awarded to researchers at Columbia University, New York
City. In his book. Brave Mew Baby, author David Rorvik
quotes Columbia's Dr. Karles Adamsons, a pioneering
fetologist. who invariably attempts to get the mother to opt
fur an abortion where pre-natal testing shows a mother is
carrying a seriously defective child.
"If necessary," he says," he says, "we will take the
mother to visit groups of incompetents (mongoloids and
other retarded or deformed children I to help her realize
what will happen if she insists on going through with the
pregnancy." (p. 681.
The directory (available from The National Foun-
dation, Box 2000, White plains, N.Y. 106021 also lists
Francis H. C. Krick, Ph. D. as a Nonresident fellow of the
Salk Institute, supported by foundation funds.
This Nobel Prize physicist and molecular biologist has
suggested, among other things, a license for parenthood and
germinal choice whereby women are artifically inseminated
with prize male stud service semen.
Krick, along with Dr. Linus Pauling, a foundation
grant recepient and other eugenic zealots support a national
genetic registry'. In Brave New Baby Pauling suggests
(only half in jest I. that people with defective genes have the
information tattooed on their foreheads.
POSITION
The March of Dimes credo is, 'Be good to your baby
before it is born.' The Coalition respectfully suggests to the
•.-owrningbody of the National Foundation that abortion is
the ultimate harm of an unborn child. Until such time as
the National Foundation reverses its growing anti-life
orientation in both word and deed, the Coalition joins with
other pro-life groups in stating that it deserves no public
support, financial or otherwise.
Abortion ■ Population Control - Eugenics
"Fertility Control Through Abortion" Carl Djerassi,
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan. 1972, pp. 0-12,
41-45.
"Can Man Control His Biological Evolution? A
Symposium on Genetic Engineering - Probabilities and
Practicalities". Carl Djerassi, Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists. Dec. 1972. pp. 25-28.
Dr. Carl Djerassi is Professor of Chemistry at
Stamford University and president of Syntex Research,
manufacturer of synthetic hormones for fertility control
drugs, and publisher of the now-defunct, vomitous Family
Planner newsletter.
Population control involves not only limiting the
quantity of human stock but also regulating the quality of
human stock, hence the inborn interest of eugenic zealots in
the population control field.
Djerassi thus sees abortion, via abortifacient drugs and
devices! as not only being "one of the most effective
methods of fertility control in countries - or in certain
population sectors within a given country" be they
developing or highly advanced countries, but as also being
an intimate link in genetic engineering.
Back isstn^Rf this publication may be obtained from
Bulletin of the Scientists, 1020-24 E. 58th St., Chicago.
111. 60637. $1.00 per copy. The Dec. Symposium issue also
contains some very fine comments by Dr. Paul Ramsey and
Dr. Paul A. Freund.
Role of Planned Parenthood-World Population in
Abortion
George Langmyhr, Medical Director, PP-WP, N.Y. in
a candid discussion of the history of this anti-life agency in
abortion, taken from the book Planned Parenthood-
World Population and reprinted in Clin. Obstet. Gynec.
14:1190-6. Dec. 71.
Dr. Langmyhr addresses himself first to P.P. as a
public service agency which should not be involved in
abortion and secondly P.P.'s role in abortion reform
legislation.
"I think it is fair to say that most professionals and
volunteers associated with Planned Parenthood have ac-
cepted, for a long time, the necessity of abortion as an
integral part of any complete or total family planning
program. The dilemma of a women who has a legitimate
method failure, or any type of unwated pregnancy, cannot
be avoided by Planned Parenthood personnel..."
With regard to P.P.'s non-profit, tax-exempt agency
status, Dr. Langmyhr explains that while P.P. is
specifically unable to overtly lobby, "many dedicated
volunteers and professionals from Planned Parenthood
Affiliates" work with other concerned citizens and reform
groups. He mentions Dr. Alan Guttmacher's "outspoken
advocacy of abortion law change" and P.P.'s legal staff role
in preparing abortion briefs.
In his outline of P.P.'s early role in abortion, activities
which were "necessarily unpublicized". Dr. Langmyhr
states his agency's involvement in abortion information,
counseling, and referral prior to the 1960's, and following
the "advent of abortion reform movements" P.P.'s role in
pregnancy detection, "clergy counseling ", and the opening
of P.P.'s own aboritorium units in N.Y.C. and Syracuse,
and national abortion hotlines.
Detailed descriptions of P.P.'s activities in California.
Colorado, and N.Y.C. including the role played by private
foundations, is highlighted in this anti-life expose - must
reading for every pro-life advocate. (See also. The Death
Peddlers, Paul Marx, O.S.B., Ph.D., St. John's University
Press, Collegeville, Minn. pp. 34-37. $.95.1
Pla nned Parenthood and the Educators
Planned Parenthood of Pittsburgh, which recently
supplied an executive director for the Women's Services.
Inc. abortitorium which swung into action in the city
during Holy Week, is conducting a nine-week course in
"sexuality" for city public school teachers who receive $ 1 50
from P.P. (Scaife Foundation grant I and one increment
credit leading to a higher salary from the Pittsburgh Board
of Education-
Women Concerned for the Unborn Child will soon
submit a pro-life parallel in-service program to the Pitt-
sburgh Board of Education.
7
53
ASA Finances
The Association for the Study of Abortion*s
President's Report by Robert E. Hall, M.D., January,
1973 featured an assessment of its 1972 program and
hailed the U.S. Supreme Court decision of 22 January,
1973 as a decision sought by ASA since its foundation in
1964 - "virtually our organizational raison d'etre."
Original founders of the ASA who contributed $5,000
or more to the agency's annual budget included the
Chichester DuPont Foundation, the Hopkins Charitable
Fund. Stewart R. Mott. the Population Council, John D.
Rockefeller 3rd. the Rockefeller brothers, the Rockefeller
Foundation and Mrs. Cordelia Scaife May. ASA current
officers include Joseph Fletcher, S.T.D., Alan F. Gutt-
macher, M.D., Christopher Tietze, M.D. and Allan C.
Bames, M.D.
Activities of the ASA in 1972 included newsletter, film
and reprint services as well as:
ASA granted $1,000 to a Pennsylvania group to
produce an educational brochure dealing with the position
of Roman Catholics who oppose the stand of their church
on the abortion question ....
ASA funded an opinion survey in Pennsylvania, the
results of which were used by the Governor's Abortion
Stud) Commission to bolster the Governor's decision to
veto a pro-life bill
ASA contributed $12,000 toward Wisconsin's
abortion law test case, and assisted in the preparation of the
Texas and Georgia briefs and in the filing and preparation
of amicus briefs in these two cases
ASA cooperated with Citizens Committee on
Population Growth and the American Future, ASA was
responsible for a pro-abortion obstetrical statement in the
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
signed by 100 professors of obstetrics
Abortion Techniques and Services, a book based on an
abortion conference sponsored in part by the ASA and
published by Excerpta Medica, Netherlands, Ed., S.
Lewit. contains a number of discussions on various aspects
of the abortion business, Ipp. 203-51 which will be of in-
terest to pro-life readers.
LawTence Lader IN ARAL, N.Y. I is despondent over
the high price of killing, while ASA President Robert Hall,
suggests an abortion backlog could be handled if only the
20,000 obstetricians in the United States would perform
only two abortions each per week. ..one million per year. As
to the problem of what to do about hostile hospital abortion
personnel, Dr. Hall reassures the conference attendees that
it need not take long to weed out the "bad" assistants and
cultivate the "good" ones.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson of Women's Services, N.Y.,
the oldest and largest of New York's abortion clinics, states
that his agency used a large core of paraprofessional women
who are neither nurses nor have they medical training of
any kind. The two simple standards for their selection are
that they be over 23 years of age and have had an abortion
in the past. Dr. Nathanson said the experiment should be
copied in every abortion clinic in the Nation.
3
n mTni
YWCA on Abortion Trandwagon - In an Associate Press
feature on the "changing image" of the Y, staff writer
Lynne Olson notes that the YWCA in recent years has been
joining in legal suits based on the principle of the "woman's
right to choose."
Hence, the Loop YWCA in Chicago offers counseling
on legal matters, abortion and rape a student Y in
Seattle sponsors a Gay l?l Women's Resource Cen-
ter provides an extensive information service for women
on everything from abortions to schools and job hun-
ting
Dr. Clair Fulcher, of the National YWCA Resource
Center on Women in N.Y. concludes the article with
comments on the growth of 'Woman Power'. It is tragic
that such power will serve Death rather than Life.
PTA and Abortion - The N.Y.S., Parent-Teachers
Association Congress, meeting in Nov., 1972 passed a
resolution supporting "family planning" and "population
control" information dissemination on a voluntary basis
and supporting "the concept of legal abortion where desired
and requested." The resolution according to the Delanson
Right to Live Committee was not based on membership
vote, but on delegate vote following discussion. (For a
glimpse at the large family grand-slam read the statement
of the National Education Association in the Senate
Subcommittee on Public Health and Welfare hearings on
the 1970 Family Planning Act. (USCL reprint No. 125 -
30cl
Suicide Clinics Proposed - The Rev. Warren Briggs,
pastor of the Chapel of the Valley Church suggested, at a 3-
day suicide conference held in San Diego, California under
the auspices of the San Diego County mental health service,
a proposal for the establishment of suicide clinics.
The suicide clinics, an extension of "mercy-killing"
centers, would "provide a painless, dignified exit for its
clients to persons whose physical life has no meaning or
value to himself or society," he said. (USCL Reprint No.
127 - 20c)
Euthanasia Linked to Abortion
Euthanasia INews, the quarterly publication of the
Good Death Fellowship 1853 Ogden St. No. 5, Denver,
Dolo. 802181, Winter 1973 issue, hailed the Abortion
Supreme Court Decision with "new cheer".
"...it becomes more and more clear that in intimate
health matters, the right to decide what to do-or not to do-
rests with the patient and her doctor, not with "society" or
some hospital's rules and regulations, the article concludes.
(Ed. comment - Medical personnel and facilities seeking
CO status for abortion and sterilization may want to add
euthanasia as well as infanticide to their growing anti-life
listings.)
Just One More Pill - An early issue of the Euthanasia
News containing a recipe for a good death states that
"Several major industries are poised and ready to make
available not merely "another pill", but a wide and colorful
range of products and methods to meet the needs of those
54
who have alread) lived their lives^Bare about ready for a
good death." (Comments made by Henry W. Hough, a
Unitarian Minister and editor of the Euthanasia Newsl.
Ford Funds Rockefeller
The Ford Foundation has awarded a three year grant
of $1.5 million to John D. Rockefeller 3rd's Population
Council for the formation of the I nternal ional Committee
for Contraceptive Research designed to identify and
explore promising compounds and devices including
chemical-releasing vaginal rings and copper-wire-wound
intra-uterine devices. US. federal funds are expected to
cover a most costly second phase of clinical trials of "new
contraceptives". Project director of the ICCR is Sheldon
Segal of the Population Council. 245 Park Ave., NY
10017. lexerpts from Ford Foundation Letter. 7-15-71).
Note: In 1969, AID awarded a $3 million dollar
contract to Dr. Segal for anti-progestational contraceptive
development. Project period 6/69 - 6/73.
Organized Religion and Healthy Sexuality a detailed
account of what clergy can do in their localities, is the
monthly feature in The Institute for Family Research and
Education's publication. Say It So It Makes Sense I Winter
- 19731, a newsletter for professionals devoted to com-
municating with youth.
The Institute, 1760 Ostrom Ave., Syracuse, N.Y.
132101 is directed by Sol Gordon, who distinguished
himself as a researcher for the Rockefeller Population
Commission by proposing that contraceptive, sterilization,
and abortion services be made available to adolescents with
or without parental consent, and as the author of comic
Imoks on birth control, abortion, masturbation and other
sexuality-oriented activities.
Members of the clergy, the Institute report suggests,
can take initiatives in several areas including parent-child
sex-education, sexual teen rap-sessions, referral services for
\ .!>.. birth control, abortion, adoption ect. ; a "well-limed,
well-planned, campaign for some sex information in the
school"; and a thorough study of the Rockefeller Com-
mission Report on Population Growth.
The Institute is part of Syracuse University's College
for Human Development programs to "improve the quality
of life". The College for Human Development will conduct
a workshop on teenage sexuality. July 2-July I 3. as part of
Syracuse I niversity's summer program. Details may be
obtained by contacting Mrs. Alison Deming at the In-
stitute.
Foreign News
Brazil Pro-Life Forces Score Victory for Life
Under the leadership of the Brazilian Society for the
Defense of Tradition. Family and Property ITFPI,
attempts to alter the Penal Code to legalize permissive
abortion were defeated last year.
In a 23 page brief prepared by the TFP Medical
Commission for Professor Alfredo Buzaid, Minister of
State of Justice, President of the National Council, Plinio
Gorrea Oliveira declared that the fundamental right of the
human person to life is valid for "the life yet inside the
mother - womb or for the one alreadv born".
The sour^^^f pro-life opposition according to the
report comes from the Gynecologic and Obstetric Society of
Rio de Janeiro with the open support of the Maternity
Institute (sic! I of the Medical and Surgical School of Rio
de Janeiro and the Maternity Infirmary of Rio's Charity
Hospital, all of which are accused of using the mass media
and influential speciality publications to make people
believe that this is what the majority of gynecologists and
the medical class in general want.
Some of the arguments put forth by the abortion
advocates include, the unborn is a mere part of the mother's
tissue abortion will liberate women .... the theory of
retarded animation the unborn is an unjust agressor
abortion is a lesser c\il science, not the Church.
has the last say in matters of operatory intervention and so
forth. This list proves, among other things, that pro-life
forces throughout the world are fighting a common enemy,
and therefore should be seeking international links with
each other a long range U.S. Coalition goal.
Of special interest is the Brazilian medical attack on
the IUD. described as "cry pto-abortive" device.
Die TFP brief is available at a cost of $3.00. A
summary of the contents of the brief is also available from
the USCL for $.80. The TFP representative in the U.S. is
the Crusade for a Christian Civilization. 303 West 42nd
St.. N.Y. 10036.
India Kycs New FIVF) ^ FOAR Plan for Population
Control
Vocording to a Nov. 1972 New Delhi wire service
release. India's future population control schemes may
include the "right" of an Indian woman to have an abortion
or be sterilized without a husband's consent and com-
pulsory sterilization of the mentally, physically, or
emotionally unfit.
Tara Ali Baig. an Indian Sangerite who has been
chosen by India's government to serve on the Task Force
on Family Planning for the Fifth Plan which liegins in
1974 claim., that such action would insure the right of
children not to be born of irresponsible parents.
Since the American tax-payer is one of the prime
sources of funds for India's "family planning" package
deals which promote everything from colored condoms to
aborlifacient lUDs to operating units for "family plan-
ning" procedures (incl. sterilization and abortions), the
question arises as to whether or not the U.S. Government
will permit tax funds to be used in programs of a com-
pulsory nature.
Thus far, the Agency for International Development
has refused to answer this query for the Coalition as well as
other questions relating to CO-ahnrtinn status in foreign
nations whose population control programs are financed by
the U.S. or the United Nations Fund for Population Ac-
tivities in which AID is the biggest "stockholder".
Action : Please contact your federal legislators and ask
their opinions on the use of tax-dollars abroad to fund
abortions, abortifacient research, mass sterilization
campaigns, and programs of COMPULSORY
POPULATION CONTROL as envisioned by India.
(For information on India's abortion program see Jan.
1973 issue of USCL Newsletter)
9
55
World Population Brief;. ^P
West Germany in Absolute Population Decline - In
1972. West Germany [juried more people than were born, a
birth deficit of about 30.000. (N.Y. Times 1-28-73 p.4).
Hungary in Period of Kapid Aging - An ever in-
creasing shrinking youth base coupled with increasing
pensioners is worrying Hungarian economists in a nation
where 1 7 per cent of the population is over the age of 60.
(Journal of AMA. Vol. 2 1 5. No. 4, p. 6501.
Israel Concerned about Arab Fertility - There is an
Ongoing birthrate battle between Jews and Arabs and the
Ar;il>~ are clearly winning, and increasing their proportion
of Israel's population. One of the factors keeping down the
Jewish birthrate is said to be induced abortions which are
illegal in Israel except to preserve "the woman's health".
IL.A. Times. 12/61*721.
M.i
Media
Population Control Ads - The Atlantic-Richfield
Company ran a full-page colored ad in WORLD, 3-27-73
Describing the critical problems presented by over-
population and population imbalance.
"Nations must work together while there is still time.
One-lions must be asked: solutions must be found.
Medical World News Ad featuring a LIFE photo of an
unborn child, just over 5 V: weeks old was run by the Syntex
Laboratories, manufactures of NORINYL, low dosage
birth control pills. Mode of action stated as "The primary
mechanism of action of the oral contraceptive is
gonadotrophin suppression. It is pointed out however that
the high efficacy of oral contraceptives may not be entirely
due to suppression of ovulation but may result from other
mechanisms such as change in cervical mucus and en-
dometrium." This statement supports Dr. Alan Gutt-
macher's claim that the combined-therapy endometrium
undergoes such drastic changes from a normal premen-
strual endometrium that it is doubtful it could support
implantation of a fertilized egg.
Another Syntex ad for NOR-Q.D. states as mode of
action: "NOR-Q.D. has a progestational effect on the
endometrium. The exact mechanism, of how it prevents
conception is not known at the present time "
WNBC-TV 4 Finances Population Attitude Study -
During the month of June, 1972, designated as
POPULATION MONTH, WNBC-TV prepared 50
programs on population which were run by NBC stations
throughout the U.S.
In conjunction with the programming, NBC com-
missioned an attitudinal study conducted by the Home
Testing Institute, Manhasset, N.Y. using the Random
Digit Dialing method.
Some of the questions used in the survey relate to
choice of family size, abortion, sterilization, unwanted
pregnancies, adoption, contraceptives to minors and
domestic population growth.
10
For a copy of the ^Bage study -results write:
George A. Hopper. Director, Marketing Services, NBC,
Inc.. 30
Rockefeller Plaza. N.Y., N.Y. 10020.
Environmental News Service - Operating under a grant
from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Scientists' Institute
for Public Information. 30 E. 68th St., N.Y. 10021 is
developing as "environmental press service under the
direction of Terri Aaronson.
Ingenue magazine - A pre-teen publication for young girls,
featured in its April 1973 issue, an article on sexual per-
version, specifically a do-it-yourself step-by-step description
of achieving oral sex orgasm. The Coalition has notified the
publishers iThe News Ingenue, 635 Madison Ave., N.Y.I
10022 of the magazine that we will conduct a national
boycott of their publication in libraries, schools and other
pre-teen facilities across the nation. We ask your co-
operation in contacting local schools, etc. asking that the
April issue be removed from the shelf and that the sub-
scription be withdrawn immediately.
Population Control Ad
r'arly this year, the Wall Street Journal ran an ad
designed to attract a corporation sponsor for a film titled
"Sorry No Vacancy".
This "completed one hour television documentary",
narrated by Rod Serling features Dr. Paul Ehrlich, Rev.
Rodney Shaw. Sen. R. Packwood, and other advocates of
population control.
According to the Wilhite Productions ad, "Spon-
sorship of this film will INSURE national prime time
television release.
An resume of the film may be obtained from Wilhite
Productions. 3742 Seahom Drive, Malibu, Ca. 90265.
Planned Parenthood and the Pause that Refreshes -
The Family Planning Federation of Canada (IPPII has
just completed a $400,000 bid for a pregnancy pause. The
campaign includes massive circulation of newspaper ads,
radio spots and transit cards. Said Brian Strehler, FPFC
director, "When we begin to use abortion as a means of
birth control we're in trouble." One of the slogans aimed at
the young is ..."If you're old enough to get pregnant, you're
old enough to know how not to".
For the Record - Subject : Abortion prohibition amend-
ment to S.2108. the Family Planning Act of 1970. Memo
from American Law Division:
The question of abortion never came to a vote as an
amendment on either floor of Congress. The house version
of the bill IH.R. 193181, however, did contain a provision
forbidding the use of funds appropriated under the act for
programs using abortion as a means of family planning.
This provision eventually became part of the law IP.L.91-
5721 which was approved by the House on Dec. 8. 1970
voice vote, and by the Senate on Dec. 10, 1970 by voice
vote.
Subject: The Hugh Moore Fund. In November, 1972,
the grand-daddy of the population control movement.
56
Foreign News continued ^^
Hugh Moore, died. The Morning Call 3-10-73 of
Allentown, Pa. noted that Moore helped fund both the
Population Institute and its offshoot, the Population
Communication Center. In 1971 he liquidated the Hugh
Moore Fund in order to aid organizations which he helped
establish. For an indepth look at these agencies read
Breeding Ourselves to Death by Lawrence Lader,
available from ZPG. Palo Alto, California. $4.95.
For the Record
Subject: Medical treatment of minors without
parental consent. The American Academy of Pediatrics
Committee on Youth have proposed a model law giving
physicians the right to treat minors without parental
consent in such areas as treatment for pregnancy, v.d., and
drug abuse and without fear of legal liability. (Medical
World News 3-23-73.1
Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists
currently in formation will meet in Miami Beach, Fla.
Monday, May 21st during the annual American
College of Ob.Gyns. For further details contact:
Matthew Bulfin. M.D.. 4701 North Federal High-
way, Ft. Lauderdale. Fla. 33342.
Marriage and Family Life Education Workshop,
Director. Paul Marx. O.S.B., Ph.D.. June 3-June 16,
1973 St. John's University. Collegeville. Minn.
56321. Write for information on accomodations,
credits etc.
Special note: Wednesday-June 6 Topics - Abortion
and Euthanasia
Thursday -June 7 Topics - Youth Pro-
Life Movement and
Monday -June 11 Natural Family
Planning
"The Population Question-Limited Government
or Limited People?" James A. Weber, The
Freeman, Oct. 72. A fine resource article available
from Jim Weber. 6314 N. Drake, Chicago. III. 60659
25c each.
Citizens For Constructive Kiluration. Box 25704,
Seattle. Washington 98 1 25. Citizens I nited for
Responsible Education, Box 9864. Chevy Chase,
Md. 20015 The above parents' rights groups in the
Held of education are among the finest of their kind.
I documented and a valuable source of pro-life in-
formation. For details and sample CCEX AND
CURE packets send $1.00 to cover printing and
postage. Areas covered include sex education, secular
humanism, child development etc..
MEETINGS — PI BI.ICATIONS — NEW SLETTERS
American Psychiatric Association. May 7-11, Honolulu.
Topics to be covered include studies of pregnancy. al>or-
tion. suicide, and homosexuality.
The Human H^P Amendment. Charles E. Rice. Available
from Professor Rice. Box 104. Notre Dame, Indiana
46556; 4 for $1 and special bulk rate. This pamphlet gives
an excellent summary of the Human Life Amendment. For
further details also write HLA Committee, 15 E. St., NW,
Washington, D.C. 20001.
"Abortion-The Role of Private Foundations".
Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology, No. 4, December.
1971, Pgs. 1181-1189. Article by Donald H. Minkler,
Ml) \1PH.
Animals and their Legal Rights. Emily Stewart
Leavitt available from the Animal Welfare Institute. Box
3492. Grand Central Station. N.Y. NY. 10017 $1.00 per
copy.
Euthanasia
"Licensed to Kill" and other assorted articles and
clippings on euthanasia are available from England's
Human Rights Society. 27 Walpole Street, London SW3.
England. Director of HRS is Mr. Bill Cooper. $1.00 per
packet to cover printing and postal charges.
"Abortion for the Asking", Helen Dudar, Saturday
Review, SOCIETY issue, April, 1973. (An arithmetical
and practical application article with a selection of in-
terviews by abortion clients. Of special note is Miss
Dunbar's comments on Catholics undergoing abortions.
She states "In this ear of radicalized and politicized clergy,
it is no longer even surprising when a woman shows up at a
clinic with the blessing of her priest." She then refers to a
Catholic patient at Parkmed aboritorium, in N.Y. who
brought in holy water from her priest, was aborted by
suction aspirator, and then had 'the tissue' blessed by a
Jewish social worker since she was unconscious during the
operation, (p. 321
When Should Abortion Be Legal, Hariet F. Pilpel and
Kenneth P. Norwick, A Public Affairs Pamphlet No. 429.
May be ordered from PAP, 381 Park Ave. South, New
York 10016, 25c each. (PAP publications are frequently
used in schools to supplement text book educational
materials. The conclusions reached oy Pilpel of P.P. and
Norwick sum up the bias of the presentation.. "Eventually,
all proponents of reform I abortion I are confident, the
presently restrictive abortion laws will be either revised or
repealed entirely. The only question, they say, is how long it
will take before it happens." Oct. 1970
Demography, publication of the Population Association of
America, Box 14182. Benjamin Franklin Station,
Washington. D.C. 20044. Issued on a quarterly oasis to
members of the PAA. this population journal is a valuable
asset to pro-life students and researchers in the
demographic field despite pro-abortion bias of PAA leaders
and many of the contributors to the publication. PAA
membership is $20.00 per year. For further details contact
the PAA at its D.C. office.
Abortion Research Notes published by the International
Reference Center for Abortion Research of the Tran-
snational Family Research Institute. 8555 10th St., Silver
Springs. Md.. 20910. Sample copies available on request
11
57
Kmko Newsletter, published by Krnkn^Rrin;il Foam Co.,
7912 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, Mo. 63143. Available
free. Editor, Elizabeth Canfield.
As the Stomach Turns
anti-life quotes
an assorted selection of
"...when a Supreme Court decision in March 1971 ex-
panded the grounds for legal termination of pregnancy in
Washington, D.C., requests at the Planned Parenthood
Association of Metropolitan Washington for pregnancy
detection increased at such a rate that a social worker was
required to devote at least half her time to the problem of
pregnancy counseling and abortion referral" from
"Pregnancy Detection: A Critical Service Link", by
Katherine B. Oettinger (First Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Population and Family Planning of HEW I in Family
Planning Perspectives, Vol. 3, No. 4 Oct. 1971.
" Anything we do to fortify the stench-to increase the
population-is a disservice both to Europe and to ourselves.
Stabilization and eventual reduction in population in
Europe would be one of the longest steps that could be
made toward world peace and well being " from Road
to Survival by William Vogt, former president of Planned
Parenthood. 1948.
"Where the dogmatists read black, the world today
reads white.. .what they consider "morality", we consider
moral imbecility. ..Our morality is not a morality concerned
with melodramatic rewards and punishments, with ab-
solute rights and wTongs. with unhealthy lingering interests
in virginity and chasity." Margaret Sanger quoted in The
Catholic Church vs Planned Parenthood" by Rev. G. A.
Kelly. The Sign. 1964.
" The methods Iq^nirh population growth was curbed
in other cultures and other times were drastic - abortion,
infanticide, starvation and other forms of early death. No
one wants to return to these methods." Quote taken from a
Planned Parenthood reprint from Cosmopolitan
Magazine, Mr. 1965 entitled "What The Planned
Parenthood People Are Up To" by Glenn White.
" To those of us in the mental health field, there is no
doubt that the child development center, with its emphasis
on the early and crucial years in the emotional and
educational maturation of the child, is an ideal whose time
has finally come," Quote by Mike Gorman, a U.S. mental
health official in address to the Church and Society In-
stitute of Pittsburgh, Feb. 21, 1973. ( Editor's comment - I
think we call such centers "home!")
" Non-feminist private (abortion) referral agencies
operate for a profit. Anything that cuts profit is curtailed
with the result that counseling and followup are
inadequate:. ...these fees go into some man's pocket....."
from The Monthly Extract, An Irregular Periodical, Box
3488 Ridgeway Station, Stamford, Conn. 06905
" Whether the ideas we espouse at this meeting can be
freely offered to our people or whether they will remain
bottled up by a 'know-nothing society" depends on us
" Lest we part on an overly optimistic note, we should
remain aware of the increasing activity and perhaps power
of the radical right. The far right is made up of people of all
creeds, colors, and diverse economic and social
backgrounds " Louis M. Helhnan, Dept. of HEW,
Office of Population Affairs in a speech before the
American Association of Sex Educators and Counselors,
Washington, D.C. March 30, 1973. (Editor's comment:
Hellman's problem is not with 'know nothings' but with
Americans who know too much.)
U.S. Coalition for Life was created to serve as a national
and international clearing house for Pro-Life organizations
and individuals seeking information, documentation,
research materials in the areas of population control,
euthanasia, genetic engineering, abortion and related areas.
Its primary function is that of service.
The U.S.C.L. Reprint Service is designed to provide
documentation and resource materials for the Pro-Life
Movement. Costs include both copying and postage ex-
penses. All reprints are to be used as study copies only.
In the case of copyrighted materials, permission must be
obtained from the publisher or author directly, except for
brief quotes which may be used with proper credit. Portions
of Newsletter may be reproduced with proper credit.
Subscription Rate is $3.00 a year which includes both
the Newsletter and special USCL mailings relating to
current areas of controversy or Pro-Life Interest. Bulk
order rate to single address is $.25 each.
Editor - Randy Engel
Associate Editor - Barbara Rutkowski
Technical Editor -G.H. Fink
58
Vol. 2 No. 4
August, 1973
Randy Engel, Editor
Published by: U.S. Coalition for Life • Box 315, Export, Pa. 15632
USCL FEATURE
lUDs - ABORTIFACIENTS and the PRO LIFE MOVEMENT
"Scientifically, abortion methods are being investigated with greater intensity than ever before . . . Professor Hardin suggests
that in the future abortion may be considered preferable to contraception."
Scientific reports on the "morning after", the "week-later" or the "second thoughts" pill are multiplying. Eliminating a newly
implanted ovum by the use of a pharmaceutical product is, of course, abortion. However, the psychological reaction of the woman
aborting in such a manner cannot be compared to that of the woman undergoing surgical abortion . . ."
Editorial by Morris Fishbein, M.D.
Medical World News - May 8, 1970
". . . The idea of a morning-after pill has much to commend it, but with frequent coitus such a pill may well become a daily
pill. A more rational approach, perhaps is menstrual regulation, the drug being taken only at a certain time in the cycle. At present
a 'deimplantation' pill seems to offer most promise . . . Developments in prostaglandin analogues . . . suggest that this method of con-
traception is just around the corner."
Editorial, Lancet 11:314
August 12, 1972
"No formal action was taken on abortion but it was much discussed . . . The term 'menstrual regulation' was disapproved,
since it is a misnomer. Scientific studies have shown that 85% of women who undergo menstrual regulation are pregnant at the time.
The CMC (Central Medical Committee. IPPF) thought that the procedure should be termed early abortion, but realized that many
people would continue to prefer the name 'menstrual regulation' , a subterfuge in terms which enables them to avoid the self-realiza-
tion that they are probably pregnant . . ."
Comments on IPPF Meeting
Alan F. Guttmacher, M.D.
President's Letter 5/4/73
"All the measures which impair the viability of the zygote at any time between the instant of fertilization and the completion
of labor constitute, in the strict sense, procedures for inducing abortion."
Dept. of HEW, PHS publication
1066 Washington: 1963, p.27
EDITORS COMMENT:
Abortion by any other name is still .
Clearly, the advocates of abortion know that life begins
at conception/fertilization. They also agree that the fertility
control measures of the future will probably be abortifacient
in nature, even though they may be disguised by appropriate
euphemisms.
Today, much controversy centers upon the IUD and so-
called mini-pill. The question is whether or not, the primary
(and secondary) modes of action of these agents are contra-
conceptive or abortifacient.
However, while the question is asked, it is not at all
clear that some pro-life people wish to find the answer. Causes
for this ambiguity are numerous.
Some do not wish to get into the area of "contraception"
which is held to be an area of private concern between the
individual couple involved. Others are actively prescribing
and/or inserting the IUD or mini-pill, or actually wearing an
IUD or ingesting the mini-pill. In the latter case, the argu-
ments of "when in doubt, the doubt should be resolved in
favor of life" gives way to the argument that "we really don't
know that the IUD or mini-pill causes an abortion every time."
It has also been stated that the Pro- Life Movement should
support a constitutional amendment which would be appli-
cable to surgical abortion only and would sanctify early
abortion via drugs and devices. Acceptance of such a rationale
would be akin to admitting that there are various stages of
being dead - dead . . . deader . . . deadest.
The U.S. Coalition for Life believes that when in doubt,
the doubt should be resolved in favor of LIFE. We do not
believe, however, that this doubt is even applicable to the IUD or
so called mini-pills since there is ample scientific documenta-
59
tion that the primary mode of action of these agents and
devices is not contra-conception but abortifacient.
The Coalition has assembled in packet form a selection
of documentation and articles on the IUD as well as a smaller
sampling on the newer pills and techniques relating to early
abortion. The "IUD packet" is available directly from the
Coalition, Box 315, Export, Pa. 15632. Cost: $6.00 per packet.
Such documentation includes: The Department of
HEW's new Five Year Plan, (May 1973) which states:
"Recent study results support the hypotheses that the
IUD alters the uterine environment in such a manner that
blastocysts are destroyed or are not able to stay in the uterus
until an estrogen surge permits implantation . . ." p. 15.
And the Hilger's report. The Intrauterine Device: Con-
traceptive or Abortifacient? which concludes:
". . . it is evident that the IUD exerts its birth-preventa-
tive effects primarily through the destruction, at a uterine
level, of the pre-implantation blastocyst. In addition, it is
clear that the IUD in the small number of cases in which
implantation is allowed to occur in its presence, is a frequent
initiator of the abortive process and, as a result, well-
developed fetuses are aborted . . ."
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
"Abortion — Compulsory Population Control"
Title X-Programs Relating to Population Growth of the
Foreign Assistance Act, the legislative vehicle by which the
Agency for International Development funnels out millions of
tax dollars into such agencies as the International Planned
Parenthood Federation, the Pathfinder Fund and the U.N.
Fund for Population Activities provides:
Sec. 291 (c) In carrying out programs authorized
in this title, the President shall establish reasonable
procedures to insure, whenever family planning assistance
from the United States is involved, that no individual will
be coerced to practice methods of family planning
inconsistent with his or her moral, philosophical, or
religious beliefs.
The abortion prohibition amendment does NOT apply
in the case of funding by AID under this act but only to the
Family Planning Act of 1970 as amended.
With increasing frequency, a number of AID recipient
nations are initiating population control programs containing
coercive elements.
In India, the government withdrew their advertisements
from a Catholic newspaper which refused to carry anti-life
materials sent to it for publication by government agencies.
In Palliport, last year, when Catholic officials refused
to permit the Indian government to open a local sterilization
"festival" to coincide with the Feast of Our Lady of Snows,
the area was declared to be "cholera infested" and the area
quarantined.
Under recent rulings by the Medical Council of India,
medical students will be REQUIRED to perform at least 10
sterilization operations under appropriate supervision in order
to receive their medical degree.
The Indian Ministry of Health has not supported a "con-
sciencious objection" clause for Catholic physicians working in
public hospitals and in at least one state, Tamil Nadu, public
officials have stated that Catholic physicians refusing to do
their share of abortions should leave government service.
Prominent Indian leaders are already calling for the "cum-
pulsory sterilization" of the mentally, physically and emotional-
ly unfit.
Likewise, in Singapore, the government has publicly
stated it will PENALIZE families refusing to participate birth
limitation, and declared 4th and 5th children born into a
family as an "anti-social" act. Henceforth, families with more
than 3 children will suffer in terms of housing priorities,
maternity benefits and increased taxation.
ACTION LINE
As of July 18, 1973 the House has passed the foreign
aid bill and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent to
the floor a similar bill for debate. It is expected that the two
bills will have to go to a conference in order to have the
differences reconciled.
The Coalition is moving to have an anti-abortion prohi-
bition rider attached onto the bill and an amendment which
would forbid the funding by AID of "family planning" pro-
grams which are coercive, in nature and thus violate both the
spirit and letter of the volunteerism class of Title X Sec. 291
(c). The issue of AID's funding of Los Supermachos should
be brought to the foreign relation committees of both houses.
By the time this issue reaches pro-life groups, sometime
in late August, the Coalition will have found a senatorial
sponsor to introduce such an amendment on the floor of the
Senate when the bill comes up for approval following the Labor
Day recess.
As soon as the amendment is given a number we will
inform pro-life groups immediately so that thev may inform
their senators on the issue.
'Medical Ghouls Continue Experimentation on Aborted Babies"
from Medical Intelligence. Vol. 288 No. 23 as printed in The
New England Journal of Medicine, June 7, 1973.
The paper, Transplacental Passage of Erythromycin and
Clindamycin was presented at the Twelfth Interscience Con-
ference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Sept.
27, 1972, Atlantic City, N.J.
The primary purpose of the experiment was to test the
transplacental passage of certain antibiotics on pregnant
women and their unborn children.
The project was aided in part by the U.S. Public Health
Service, and one of the participants is a recipient of an NIH
career-development award.
There were 33 women, ages 15 to 43 years of age,
carrying children from 10 to 22 weeks of gestation. The
authors state that "informed consent" was obtained from
fourteen of the women although we would question the
degree to which a young girl 15 could issue such consent. The
majority of the women were aborted by hysterotomy while
60
eight were aborted via saline infusion. An additional number
served as a control group.
The paper states that following procedures, an assay
for antibiotic content was performed on the amniotic fluid
and various body organs including the liver and lungs as well
as brain, muscle, bone and blood. The authors however do not
indicate how such procedures were conducted given the fact
that a hysterotomy produces a live baby.
In Hemoglobin A Synthesis in the Developing Fetus,
The New England Journal of Medicine, July 12, 1973
authored by staff members from the Department of Pediatrics,
John Hopkins University School of Medicine, we read of a
similar experiment. The contract was supported by the National
Institutes of Health (NIH). Authors, Kazazian and Woodhead
acknowledge their gratitude to members of the Department of
Obstetrics, John Hopkins Hospital for assistance in obtaining
"fetal specimens".
Twenty-five of the aborted women were black, seven-
teen white. No mention is made of "informed consent" by
the pregnant women, all of whom were aborted by elective
hysterectomy or hysterotomy.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER DELIVERY, the peripheral
blood cells were taken from the live babies and whole
blood drained off from the babies who range in size from 3.5
to 20.0 cm from crown to rump, the youngest being 55 days
old.
The National Institute of Health is currently preparing
a set of "guidelines" on such experimentation by staff
scientists. A set of English "guidelines" are included in our
Fetal Packet (Price $5.00), along with documentation on
experiments on live aborted babies. EVERY pro-life group
should contact the NIH and request seating when public debate
opens this Fall.
"Federal Abortifacient — Population Control Funding"
An Inventory of Federal Population Research (FY 72)
including grants and contracts for abortifacient and popula-
tion control research is now available from the Center for
Population Research of the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development, Bethesda, Maryland 20014. Ask
for - DHEW Publication No. (NIH) 73-133).*
In FY 1972, Federal agencies invested $61 million in
population research — research in which primates, mostly
humans, were used as "research subjects" in behavioral science
and basic biological fields.
The Federal agencies engaged in population research
included the Center for Population Research (HEW), AID, the
National Science Foundation, the Office of Economic Oppor-
tunity and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Agency for International Development (AID) pro-
vided $2.7 million for a large program to develop "simplified
techniques of postconceptive fertility control." (p.5)
Center grants went to Rockefeller's Population Council,
Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin, the University
of Texas, and Vanderbilt University.
•Reference copies «
Included in the eight pages of grants and contracts for
abortifacient research, primarily in the area of prostaglandins
are the -
Worchester Foundation for Experimental Biology,
Shrewbury, Mass.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
University of West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica
John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.
Upjohn Company, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Population Council, N.Y., N.Y.
Two HEW-NIH contracts totaling more than $250,000
include the growth of human trophoblast cells in culture and
fertilization of human ova in vitro.
Catholics in particular may be interested in an HEW-
NIH grant of $13,629 to J. Mayone Sytcos of Cornell
University to study "DIOCESAN MOBILIZATION A-
GAINST ABORTION LAW REFORM" (p.98)
In the area of population education, a three-year HEW-
NIH grant of more than $50,000 went to R.H. Monge of the
University of Syracuse, Sol Gorden's stomping grounds. Pro-
ject title "Communicating Population Facts to Adolescents".
nlable at no charge.
"Hud Enters Family Planning Field"
"Children bring great joy . . . when they are wanted."
(Cover of HUD Familv Planning Packet!
Titled Family Planning, the United States Department of
Housing and Ubran Development series, is the product of an
18-month technical assistance effort involving 20 Model Cities
during 1970-71 (H-1306), now part of Community Develop-
ment.
The objects of the project, carried out under a HUD
contract with Westinghouse Learning Corporation, were "to
increase Model Cities capability in functional programming, to
increase the effectiveness of the operating agency, and to aid in
improving the Model Cities planning processes."
The HUD monograph contains four booklets:
I. The Concept II. Program Planning
III. Getting and Keeping Your Program Going
IV. Improving Your Existing Program
The series introduction (I) explains that the purpose of
these publications is to assist local decision makers as they
undertake family planning projects as part of a "local health
care system, and to provide public officials with the rationale
for the agency's legitimate involvement in family planning",
thus lending support for including a family planning component
in the city's Comprehensive Demonstration Program Plan.
The Model Cities receiving Family Planning Technical
Assistance under the HUD-Westinghouse contract were:
Akron, Ohio E. St. Louis, III. Portland, Oregon
Athens, Georgia Charlotte, N.C. Rochester, N.Y.
Bowling Green, Ky. Manchester, N.H. Rock Island, III.
Buffalo, N.Y. Newark, N.J. San Antonia, Tex.
Texarkana, Tex. Youngstown, O. Springfield, Mass.
Texarkana, Ark.
The basic components of the HUD family planning pro-
gram include a full range of services designed to "educate the
general public as well as patients" about the principles of family
61
planning. Delivery of such services can be made through (1)
clinics such as Planned Parenthood affiliates (2) hospital post-
partum programs (3) private physicians and others (ex. Mobile
units).
Series I. includes a brief history of the Sangerite Move-
ment and how such obstacles as "longstanding values and
attitudes about pro-creation", religious teachings such as "be
fruitful and multiply" and sex is sinful except for procreation-
theology are fading into the distant horizon and replaced with
the new Planned Parenthood ethic. Also mentioned is the intro-
duction of birth control clinics into Puerto Rico "under the
guise of maternity services", and the flooding of P. P. units by
millions of middleclass women anxious to "control their fertil-
ity" after the advent of the Pill.
Additional obstacles to HUD programs also includes
charges of genocide by minority groups and RESTRICTIONS
OF WOMEN SEEKING ABORTIONS (emphasis added).
Cited as an example of how pressure groups can team ur
with service providers using public funds is the Shaw University
teen program funded by the OEO. (USCL Reprint No. 114)
In this federally funded innovative program, teenage family
planning pimps solicited pre-teen black youth operating out of
a health clinic in a public housing neighborhood known as HIP.
Their "meetings" included distribution of condoms and foams
to youth as young as twelve years old.
According to the HUD publication "many public officials
now consider it their responsibility to support this expression
of the nation's will" (p.1 7).
Besides, family planning helps avoid illness and can be
thought of as part of arvy preventative health care program. This
makes pregnancy a disease against which there is immunization.
There is also the matter of economics. Included in the
section are charts detailing the economics of "unwanted fertil-
ity" and the cost-benefit ratio of avoiding "unwanted births"
with the admonition that the cost of raising one child on wel-
fare is 26 times greater than the $300.00 which could have been
used to keep him out of this world in the first place.
Series 1 1, highlights the various task forces and community
action approaches. HUD administrators are warned that the
clergy might object to such programs to be sure and state that
all methods including rhythm are to be offered. The goal - a
comprehensive range of family planning services "to all persons
of child bearing age in the target area".
Series III. includes a variety of clinical tasks including
abortion counseling services.
For "high-risk" females "contraceptive counseling by a
physician should be considered mandatory".
Appendix I offers a sample copy of the PROVISIONAL
REPORT FORM FOR FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES OF
HEW which ALL OEL, DHEW, and Planned Parenthood pro-
grams are REQUIRED to submit to the National Center for
Health Statistics.
Included in the report is a detailed account of the patient's
"sexual history" including frequency of intercourse, age of first
intercourse, attitudes of partner toward contraception, and type
of contraception used.
A sample of the IUD consent form used by Dr. Joe Beasley
at his Louisiana family planning clinic absolving the physician
from liability for any ill-effects the patient may suffer from the
IUD insertion, is also included.
This series lists distributors of contraceptive supplies and
abortifacient devices. For rhythm information and supplies
Planned Parenthood is listed as a reference despite the fact
the Human Life Foundation which has been in existence
since 1968 is the nation's prime source of updated information
on natural family planning methods.
Series IV. attempts to establish standards by which one
can measure the effectiveness of family planning programs. The
HUD publication insists that all barriers must be removed which
inhibit teens from getting the services they need. Planned
Parenthood's Teen Clinic is selected as a model program.
Pro-lifers may recall in the Fall of 1972, a Youth Resource
Handbook funded by HUD and provided by Kentucky's Human
Resources Coordinating Commission, which gave a detailed fact
sheet on where teens could obtain out-of-state abortions along
with prices and transportation information.
References throughout the series include Planned Parent-
hood, the Population Council, the Population Reference Bureau
and Westinghouse Learning Corporation.
Each cover of the series includes a disclaimer which reads in part that the opinions expressed in this publication do not
necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of .any U. S. Government agency.
The Coalition is ready to admit that this is true. The opinions expressed are those of Planned Parenthood and Company
who just happen to use the agency's name and funding to propagandize their policies and philosophy in much the same way
as it has prostituted numerous other Federal agencies. We do however, hold the Department of Housing and Urban Develop-
ment responsible for permitting its agencies to be used for purposes other than specifically called for in the DHUD Act of Sept.
9, 1965 and for its circumvention of legislative intent by bureaucratic fiat.
The Coalition has informed HUD Secretary George Romney and Assistant Secretary for Community Development,
Floyd H. Hyde of these violations and asked that all HUD "family planning" activities be brought to an end.
Address: Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 Seventh Street SW, Washington, D.C. 20410
The complete four-part monograph is available for $4.50 from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing
Office, Wash., D.C. 20402.
"Tax Decentives First Level of Population Control"
On January 31, 1973, Senator Robert Packwood intro-
duced S.650, a bill to extend to all unmarried individuals the
same tax benefits enjoyed by married couples filing joint returns.
The following month The Report of the Tax Policy Ad-
visory Committee to the Council on Environmental Quality
recommended that the Federal Income Tax should be changed
to give higher exemptions for adults than for children on the
grounds of equity and "as a symbol of population policy".
62
In Beyond Conception: Our Children's Children, Martha
Willing of Population Dynamics, Seattle, Washington illuminates
the meaning of tax decentives within the context of population
control programs.
"One by one, as individuals come to accept Stop at Two
for themselves, the need to persuade and coerce others will
also develop," states Mrs. Willing.
The "three stages of mutual legislation coercion" include
(1) the removal of a $700 tax deduction for third and fourth
children
(2) replace incentives "to breed" with incentives and rewards
for small families
(3) "to penalize deliberate violations of a small family norm,
and to set up controls which prevent such violations."
In order to be democratic or uniformly totalitarian, Mrs.
Willing suggests that tax decentives for upper and middle-class
parents be matched by turning the screws on welfare families
with excess fertility. The author also includes programs limit-
ing free public schooling for two children per family and the
granting of college scholarships to parents with only one or two
children.
And what about punishments for violators?
"Again, after the third child is born, both mother and
father will have to present themselves at the hospital to undergo
sterilization procedures. If the couple does not appear, or if only
one appears, there will be NO BIRTH CERTIFICATE ISSUED
to the third child, but instead a third-child paper. The mother
can be tattooed or marked to signify a third birth to any sub-
sequent doctor. Instead of the missing parent, THE CHILD
CAN BE STERILIZED ON THE SPOT, insuring that this undue
share of the gene pool will not be carried forward." (p. 174)
(Editor's Note: the only thing more physically revolting than
having to read the above paragraph is having to print it.)
According to Mrs Willing, half of the battle of coercion
is won since we have birth certificates which state who had had
children and how many. She therefore sees little difficulty in
persuading couples wishing to obtain the birth certificate for
child No. 3 to either sterilize themselves or agree to abort all
subsequent children.
"Office of Economic and Other Opportunities (OEO)"
A moratorium on the use of Federal funds to sterilize
minors and legal incompetents is currently in force until new
Federal guidelines are put into effect about September 1st.
The Coalition has petitioned Casper Weinberger, Secre-
tary of HEW to extend the moratorium to include abortion
of minors without parental consent and the use of experi-
mental drugs on minors and legal incompetnets for the pur-
pose of temporary sterilization and/or as an abortifacient
agent We have also asked for an impartial investigation of
agencies receiving Federal funding such as Planned Parenthood
which is currently involved in both the aborting of minors
without parental consent and the use of experimental birth
control techniques on minors and the retarded.
Planned Parenthood Films
The OEO has funded three films produced by Seattle's
Planned Parenthood Center for Moms and Dads. The first of
the sex education series is "Old Enough to Know". Other
films will be directed at pre-teens and mature adolscents and
their parents.
OEO Legal Services Lawyers and Abortion Litigation
On June 21, 1973, Congressman Hogan detailed the anti-
life activities of certain OEO Legal Services lawyers and pro-
posed an amendment to the pending legislation which would
prohibit the Legal Services Corporation from providing legal
assistance to any proceeding or litigation relating to abor-
tion. (For full statement and working of final amendment see
the Congressional Record - June 21, 1973, H5129-H5131).
Evidence linking OEO legal services attorneys with cases
attacking anti-abortion statutes in New 'York and California
were clearly documented. Additional evidence related to OEO
attacks upon parental rights and the constitutionality of anti-
abortion statutes, as well as support for aborting minors with-
out parental knowledge or consent.
The House voted 301 to 68 to accept Hogan's amend-
ment to the Legal Services Corporation Act.
"U.S. Dept. of Agriculture - Cooperative Extension Service"
On the evening of February 22, 1973 the Cooperative
Extension Association of Chemung County (N. Y.) co-sponsored
a workshop entitled "Issues in Population" wi th Planned Parent-
hood of the Southern Tier.
Publicity sheets announcing the program bore the letter-
head:
Cooperative Extension Service - New York State
Cornel University-State University of N. Y.
U. S. Department of Agriculture
Packets distributed to the teachers at the workshop in-
cluded Guttmacher's "The Tragedy of the Unwanted Child",
"The Viewers Guide to Population and the American Future,
Kathryn Horsley's (Population Reference Bureau) Sources,
Resources: Population Education, and an assortment of other
PP-WP and PRB materials.
The film shown prior to the lecture was 1985, a drama-
tized news broadcast reporting on the environmental disaster
brought about by overpopulation and associated ills. Produced
by Metromedia, the film is distributed by the Denver Chapter
of ZPG.
Lectures included Prof. J. Mayone Stycos of Cornell
University. Professor Stycos is a technical consultant to the
Population Reference Bureau. In September 1972 he received
a grant of $13,629 to study "DIOCESAN MOBILIZATION
AGAINST ABORTION LAW REFORM" from the DHEW's
National Institute of Health.
Mrs. Sally Auman, Cooperative Extension Specialist in
Population Affairs, Cornell University also spoke on population
change.
The program was moderated by a local Planned Parent-
hood physician.
Jane Callahan, president of Chemung County Right to
Life has protested the use of tax funds for such programs and
demanded a full investigation of the financing, staffing, and
salaries of the Chemung County Coop-Extension Association.
63
BACKGROUND
This workshop is the outgrowth of PERSPECTIVES FOR
THE 70's, developed by the Program Planning and Development
staff of Cornell in cooperation with other agencies including
the program staff of the Extension Administration and designed
for state-wide (N. Y.) educational programs. Among the "prior-
ity areas" for Cooperative Extension Service in this decade is
Population - Growth, Dispersion, Control.
The pilot project in population-communication has been
in operation for MORE THAN ONE YEAR. Sponsor of the
project is COSPA/NY (Communications Specialists in Popula-
tion Affairs/New York).
Funding for the project is derived mainly from the Inter-
national Population Program of Cornell University directed by
Professor J. M. Stycos, as well as from the Extension Admini-
stration and the Human Ecology College. Total budget for 8
month pilot project - $13,900.
COSPA/NY chose to use the Cooperative Extension Ser-
vice in its opening phase because of the agency's built-in-state-
wide communication network. Project objective: to explore
the possible roles for extension agents in the areas of popula-
tion-family planning.
In the past two years, N. Y.'s Cooperative Extension
Agency has been "orientating" its agents in these fields parti-
cularly through special sessions at annual conferences. In late
1971, the agency's director approved the training of agents and
paraprofessionals in family planning communication. Popula-
tion-family planning are seen as being easily integrated into
Extension 4-H programs and nutritional programs for low in-
come groups.
To prepare agents, a notebook POPULATION AFFAIRS
AND NEW YORK STATE was prepared by COSPA/NY. This
"guide" intended for the long Range Planning Committees
of the Coop-extension staff include in its table of contents;
A Plan for Study: Population and the American Future, and
assortment of P. P. - W. P. and Population Reference Bureau
literature, and tapes by Stycos, Cole and Guttmacher. Note-
book topics include abortion, family planning, population con-
trol. These population-family planning "services will eventually
be extended to all counties of New York State."
Funding for state Coop-Extension Services is shared by
State Governments, county governments and the U. S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture.
Extension programs include 4-H youth development, home
economics and special programs for low income people.
In a letter to Sen. Schweiker of Pennsylvania intended
for the U. S. Coalition for Life, Edwin L. Kirby, Administrator
for the U. S. D. A. Extension Service stated:
(1) The U. S. D. A. has no policy on family planning or
population control education. Any state university Exten-
sion Services conducting such programs are doing so "in
response to the expressed needs of the citizens of those
states . . ."
(2) I nformai, out-of -school extension programs areauthorized
under Smith-Cever legislation (as amended).
(3) The U. S. D. A. has made no survey of the State Exten-
sion Services to determine if they are conducting any
family planning education programs. 'The Department
does not have this information."
(4) 'The role of the agricultural Extension agents is entirely
educational. No agent would ever distribute contracep-
tive devices.
(5) There are presently no plans for the D. A. to assume a
role in family planning, in population control or in abor-
tion referrals.
Answers to (4) and (5) are in reference to a Planned
Parenthood reprint of January 1972 entitled, "Agricultural
Aides: A New Manpower Resource" by Jean Brand, Extension
Education Specialist with the Extension Service of the U.S.D.A.
The article is based on a graduate thesis and reflects the author's
views and not necessarily those of the U.S.D.A. or the Extension
Service.
Of interest is Brand's outline of mechanisms by which
the U. S. Department of Agriculture via the Extension Service
could become involved in the family planning field. Recom-
mendations include the announcement by the U.S.D.A that it
would support funding for such programs; getting local exten-
sion committees to relay their "interests" in such programs to
State Extension Services; and getting ECOP (Extension Com-
mittee on Organization and Policy) to create a "consensus"
favoring such involvement.
The U.S.D.A. currently employs more than 9,000 agricul-
tural aides in its nutrition education programs reaching more
than 1.7 million people, mostly low income women.
Objective of the program would be to have these aides
trained in family planning education, the information would
thus be incorporated into their presentations and the aides
could then make appropriate referrals to family planning agency
for their problem.
The Coalition has requested that Mr. Kirby, the head ad-
ministrator of the U.S.D.A. 's Extension Service to:
(1) Conduct a survey of State Extension Services to
assess the degree, if any, of such agencies in family planning-
population education programs and make the results of such a
survey available to the public.
(2) To investigate whether or not ECOP has taken up
the question of including such programs as a matter of policy
into existing Extension programs including the nutritional
aides projects.
(3) To state whether or not the U. S. Department of
Agriculture is considering supporting, directly or indirectly,
this agency's involvement in family planning or population
education programs.
Support for Coalition action may be directed to:
Mr. Edwin L. Kirby, Administrator and Earl L. Butz, Secretary
of Agriculture — USDA, 14th St.-lndependence Ave. SW -
Washington, D.C. 20250.
"East-West Center — Hawaiian Population Control Base"
The East-West Center is "An Educational Institution of
the Government of United States of America in Cooperation
with the University of Hawaii".
Formally known as the Center for Cultural and Technical
Inter-Change Between East and West, the Center was established
by Congress in 1960 to promote better relations and mutual
respect between the U.S. and the Nations of Asia and the Pacific
64
BACKGROUND
In 1971, the E-W Center's Communication Institute, one
of five institutes conducted by the Center, received a grant
from USAID for the establishment of an international popula-
tion communication center. "A major goal of the resource base
is the training of population program communication specialists,
planners, and administrators primarily through scholarship and
workshop programs. The activity of the E-W Communication
Institute is coordinated with the E-W Population Institute and
the University of Hawaii.
The official organ of the E-W Communication is the IEC
Newsletter (Information, Education, communication in popula-
tion) Address: 1777 East-West Road, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822.
Anti-Baby Propaganda Center
The following sampling of "messages" from the Commun-
ication Center were selected from five IEC Newsletters. With-
out exception, the messages are anti-large (anti-moderate) size
family. They are distinctly pro-population control including
pro-sterilization and pro-abortion.
July, 1972 Contents included:
Promotion for Rockefeller Report
Sol Gorden's Ten Heavy Facte About Sex
First "Love Boutique" at Chapel Hill
Choice Not Change - P. P. Nigerian style brochure
"None Is Fun" promotion on the National Organization
for Non-Parents.
True to Life - Birth Control - Abortion confession mag-
azine.
Pop Goes the World explosion poster
November, 1972 - Contents included:
P. P.'s comic book, Facte of Life
Korean family planning song on happy children — only
those who are planned . . . planned . . . planned . . .
Population posters on spacing children like you space
bananas
Snakes and Ladders - P. P. style game with such label-
ing as "Tired, Sick Mother" vs "Strong Nation"
Population Reference Bureau — Jr. High and Secondary
School population texts
Market Research and STOP AT TWO
January, 1973 - Contents included:
ZPG-PP poster featuring a baby in his birthday suit
laying on an ancient symbol beneath which is
scribbled, "Have me if you want But: if you can't
give me love, security and support, Please Wait,
I Can".
Diana Ross's song "Love Child" about an illegitimate and
unplanned child and its value as a family-planning
song in the mass media.
Population Council's Walt Disney Family Planning Film-
strip — modified Indian version.
"Paste Your Umbrella" student population control book-
let • India Poster Contest - Winner's themes
include, Make Love Not Babies, Population Ex-
plosion and Two are Enough • P.P.'s Love . . .
Carefully posters and stickers
March, 1973 - Contents include:
Promotion of condom sales
Anti-large family posters from Afghanistan
May. 1973 - Contents included:
Promotion of condom sales
Sol Gorden's Planning Your Family
"Pregnant Male" promotes sterilization clinic
Population Institute's Poster winners
American Home Economics Population Packets
AID's Population Information Program at George Wash-
ington University in D.C.
Promotion for Rockefeller film
ACTION LINE
All IEC Newsletters- contain anti-life references. To date the
1-W Communications Center has never published any prr>life
Information sent to it by the Coalition over an extended period
■of 1 5 months.
All these newsletters and workshops and scholarships are
funded by the Federal Government, and promote an idealogy
yvhich many Americans find repugnant
The Director ot the E-W Center has been notified by tele-
gram that if there is no immediate balance brought into the
newsletter and workshop programs, the Coalition will move for
appropriate Congressional action beginning in September to cut
oft *heir population funding.
NON-GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES
"American Psychological Association"
TASK FORCE ON PSYCHOLOGY, FAMILY PLANNING AND
POPULATION POLICY
The Fam-Pop Task Force of the American Psychological
Association began in December 1969, following the creation
of the Task Force by an APA Council Resolution. Funding for
a March workshop to discuss the role of psychologists in this
area was provided by Rockefeller's Population Council. A
questionnaire was submitted to the APA membership to meas-
ure the degree of interest and research, training, and service
areas related to population, and members were encouraged to
get on the Population Council mailing list. Suggested abortion
readings include D. Callahen's Law, Choice, and Morality (Popu-
lation Council grant) and R. Hall's Abortion in a Changing
World.
Listed among the Task Force consultants are Sidney H.
Newman, Ph.D., Behavioral Scientist Administrator at the Cen-
ter for Population Research of the NICHD. and Vaida Thomp-
son of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Dr.
H. P. David. AIR/Transnational Family Research Institute.
In 1971, the Population Council funded the 2nd invita-
tional workshop at Berkeley on "Psychological Measurement
in Studies in Family Planning". The Ford and Rockefeller
Foundations also announced a Program in Support of Social
Science and Legal Research on Population Policy, with a maxi-
mum one year award of $50,000.
Recommended population resources listed in the Task
Force newsletter of December 1970 included Planned Parent-
hood, the Population Crisis Committee and the Population
Reference Bureau.
65
The June 1972 Newsletter announceWKat the Task Force
was now in its third and last year and contained a petition to
establish a DIVISION OF POPULATION PSYCHOLOGY with-
in the APA. It also announced an invitational workshop on fer-
tility counseling to be held in Hawaii sponsored by the Federal
Government's National Center for Family Planning Services and
APA. A-ttached was a^Kpy of the Population Program of the
1972 Annual APA Convention.
Among the topics and papers covered were Toward Train-
ing Population Psychologists, Attitudes of Health Professionals
Toward Family Planning and Abortion, and Population Control,
Family Size, and Family Planning.
I
ACTION LINE
The A. P. A COUNCIL WILL BE CONSIDERING THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF A DIVISION OF POPULATION PSY-
CHOLOGY AT ITS UPCOMING CONVENTION IN MON-
TREAL IN SEPTEMBER.
Pro-life groups are now organizing under a variety of
professional banners, i.e. Pro- Life Nurses Association, Pro- Life
OB & Gyns. Pro- Life psychologists may want to do likewise
in order to provide pro-life input into the new Division of Pop-
ulation Psychology of the American Psychological Association.
Additionally, pro-life editors and writers should begin
sending their publications and articles on a regular basis to the
newsletter editor of the upcoming division, at the following
address:
Ad hoc Committee on Psychology, Family Planning
and Population Policy
Newsletter Editor
Division of Population Psychology
1200 17th Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20036
"Children's Television Workshop Health Series"
On March 27-28, 1973 the Children's Television Work-
shop, creators of "Sesame Street" met with a number of family
planners to discuss topics including contraception, abortion and
sterilization. The Family Planning Task Force was one of seven
groups assembled with writers and staff personnel of CTW,
each meeting held at separate times, over a period of three
months.
In his Friends of P. P. May 4 Newsletter, Dr. Alan Gutt-
macher described a portion of the discussion as well as the
attitudes of the participants relating to contraception and abor-
tion.
According to Dr. Guttmacher, most participants in the
"free and frank" discussion agreed that the topics be handled
"openly and sympathetically". "One participant suggested that
abortion be mentioned at least 16 of the 26 hours to detoxify
the viewing audience from cultural shock at the word" he states.
One of the show's producers upon hearing Ella McDonald of
N.Y.'s Human Resources Administration discuss the predica-
ment of a pregnant eight-year old and the distress of the staff
when the mother refused to have the child aborted, suggested
the episode be included in their script.
"The plan is to integrate family planning as an important
segment in several different shows rather than isolating it as a
separate topic. The television amateurs were reminded by the
professionals of the value of repetition," concludes Dr. Gutt-
macher. (all emphasis added)
"Cartooning and Population Control"
Last year, the Population Institute's Population Commun-
ication Center (475 Riverside Dr., N.Y., N.Y. 10027) sponsored
a $5,000 award for the best 30 minute script on population con-
trol produced on prime-time television between Sept. 72 and
Jan. 73.
The "different shows" Guttmacher refers to will be based
on the following topics (each having been given a separate dis-
cussion period):
Parenting: Adolescent Health Problems
Parenting: Prenatal, Infant, and Child Care
Modification of Personal Habits: drugs, smoking . . .
Seeking Care: Access, Use and Participation
Chronic Diseases
Family Planning
Death
The 26 part CTW Health Series project involves three
phases with Fall, 1974 the date of the anticipated broadcast (s).
The task force seminars were part of Phase II and designed for
possible series content and to generate program ideas.
Given the task force participants in the family planning
unit, the Coalition believes that Dr. Guttmacher's evaluation
of the orientation of the seminar was accurate.
ACTION LINE
Mr. William Kobin, Future Works Division of CTW has
offered to meet with the U. S. Coalition of Life to discuss our
views on the topic of "family planning". As this newsletter
goes to print, we are in the process of arranging such a meeting
as a preliminary action for full dialogue with the Children's
Television Workshop Production Staff.
This year, the Communication Center has launched a
contest for cartoonists through several major cartoonists' soci-
eties. The goal - use of cartoons in the mass media to influence
and persuade in the area of population control and family
planning.
66
"Planned Parenthood and Media TIMWANKS"
Richard K. Manoff, ad man for Planned Parenthood and
a member of Dr. Louis Helman's Population Committee, has
complained that despite the approval of the Advertising Council,
some stations have turned down his broadcast spots.
In a statement carried in Advertising Age (10/30/72),
Manoff suggested that Congress require radio-tv stations to set
'Law and Population Programme"
In 1970, the Agency for International Development con-
tracted with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts
University (administered with the co-operation of Harvard
University) to establish a Law and Population Programme, at
a cost of $640,000.
With its main thrust directed at the development of a
reporting network on legal data from developing nations, the
Programme has also conducted seminars and initiated in-depth
national studies on how the law effects human fertility behavior
(ex. laws restricting distribution or importation of contracep-
tives or laws prohibiting contraceptive sterilization and/or
abortion.) Currently, it is compiling and analyzing country
monographs and in co-operation with UNESCO is sponsoring
an inter-regional workshop to teach "population dynamics"
in law schools.
Programme Director Luke T. Lee also serves on the United
Nations Fund for Population Activities enabling the agency to
co-ordinate its activities on an international scale - activities
which will culminate in the 1974 World Population Conference
for which the Programme is preparing reference documentation.
While the earlier newsletters of the Programme repeatedly
emphasized the U.N. declaration that family planning is a basic
human right, the developing orientation of this group is clearly
directed along population control lines in which all means of
aside 10% of their total commercial time for public service in-
formation on such things as family planning, education, etc
. . The public service "time bank" would be administered by
a non-political, new public corporation.
This system could be used by such "starved" govern-
men programs as HEW's family planning services, Manoff
suggested. (Editor's note: Just a little bit of humor, folks!)
fertility control including abortion, sterilization and contracep-
tion are supported by law.
For example, the May 1973 newsletter briefly described
the legal maneuvers of the International Planned Parenthood
Federation (IPPF) at its Indian Ocean Regional Seminar at the
University of Ceylon in July, 1972 at which time the IPPF re-
commended that countries in the region set up special commit-
tees to study the feasibility of liberalizing present laws, regard-
ing "pregnancy termination".
Such an admission is of critical importance to pro-life
agencies since the U.S. Agency for Internation Develop-
ment is the major source of funding for the IPPF. Sec-
ondly, the IPPF has maintained that where abortion is
illegal, its policy is merely to insure medical aid in cases
of incomplete abortions backed up by contraception pro-
visions. (See Abortion - Classification and Techniques,
published by the IPPF, 18-20 Lower Regent Street, Lon-
don SW1 Y 4PW, England Price $1.00).
The IPPF is currently funding Law and Population Pro-
jects in Latin America including a Mexican venture begun in
1972.
ACTION LINE
Pro-life attorneys and other legal personnel may obtain
additional information on the Programme by contacting Mr. Lee
at Tufts University. Medford, Mass. 02155.
"Rockefeller Foundation and Abortion and Dr. Know-LEK'
On March 14, John H. Knowles, President of the Rockefeller Foundation addressed the National Advisory Council of the Cen-
ter for Family Planning Program Development, in New York City. The CFPPD is the Technical Assistance Division of Planned
Parenthood-World Population.
The subject: An affirmative Response of the Health System to the Supreme Court Abortion Decision.
Accordingto Dr. Knowles, the key ingredients in securing implementation of the S.C. mandate involves (1) an informed public
policy and (2) an effective action program. Thus enabling a capacity load of from 1 ,200,000 to 1 ,800,000 killings a year throughout
the nation to take place.
Part of the public education program would include promoting the advantages of the early detection of the presence of the
child within the womb and then as promptly and efficiently as the "health services" could react, destroying that child, with tax funds
if necessary.
While forcing anyone to have an abortion or to perform an abortion is not indicated by the S.C. decision, Dr. Knowles sug
gests that the "service" must be available and accessible to those who need and want them. Unless communities take the necessary
steps to make abortion facilities readily available and accessible, it is "unfortunately", predictable that legal and other pressures will be
brought to bear to compel the existing institutions (including hospitals and health institutions with religious affiliations) to meet
community needs.
RF and Population Control
In the June 1973 issue of RF Illustrated, Dr. Allan C. Barnes, Vice-President of the Rockefeller Foundation attacks the pro-
blem of how to reach "the ignorant, the uneducated, and the lowly motivated" with the New Malthusian Gospel according to the
new St. Paul.
"Do not tell me what the Old Testament says, because the Old Testament was written on the flat side of the curve" (referring
67
to world population growth chart), suggeSrc Dr. Barnes, who sees the problem as not merely one of making birth control available
but one of getting people to do as they are told.
The combined population control budget for Ford-Rockefeller grants in 1972 was $23 million. Grants to 26 social scientists
and legal scholars from the Ford-Rockefeller Foundation in 1972 totalled $647,702 for a variety of population projects involving
the effects of the U.S. income tax on fertility patterns to motivations for delayed marriage in Hong Kong.
Some 1972 Rockefeller grants which may have special interest for pro-lifers include:
$ 25,000 - Operating costs of Citizens Committee on Population Growth and the American Future.
$ 25,000 - To the Population Crisis Committee for their special population report.
$ 5,900 - To the family planning program of Emory University, Georgia publishers of TRUE TO LIFE, the true confession birth
control-abortion magazine.
$ 86,000 - Grant to the Planned Parenthood Association of MARYLAND for population education in the BALTIMORE schools.
$500,000 - To the Population Council for "new Approaches" to conception control.
$ 50,000 - To the James Madison Constitutional Law Institute for programs in population law.
$ 98,000 - Grant to Wake Forest University for RESEARCH IN REPRODUCTIVE IMMUNOLOGY.
"The Playboy Foundation"
Citing its role in aiding "the right-to-abortion movement" the Playboy Foundation listed the following orgainzation as grant
recipients: Association for the Study of Abortion (ASA), the Illinois Citizens for Medical Control of Abortion, the Clergy Consul-
tation Service on Problem Pregnancies, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAD, Women's National
Abortion Coalition (WNAC), Center for Constitutional Rights, and Texas Citizens for Abortions.
Additionally, the Playboy Foundation supplied the Supreme Court with copies of an article by Professor Means on the history
of abortion in both English and American Law, which was quoted in the Court's Texas opinion. (Playboy, May 1973, p. 71). Now
who said the Supreme Court didn't do their homework?
"Population Control through Home Economics"
The American Home Economics Association has signed
a three-year contract with the Agency for International Develop-
ment (USAID).
In 1971, AID awarded a grant of $1 18,000 to the AHEA
to assess "needs and opportunities" for home economics asso-
ciations and institutions in developing countries to provide
family planning concepts and information. When field surveys
proved "so enthusiastic" AID increased its first year funding
in order to support three family planning workshops in 1972
at Lincoln, Nebraska, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, Georgia.
Participants in the workshops were home economics stu-
dents from developing countries studying in the United States.
The workshop format centered on ( 1 ) Community Experiences
- designed to develop "population awareness" (2) Home Coun-
try Studies - population trends showing need for family plan-
ning material made available to students and (4) Spreading the
Information - students project in area of population.
The theme of the three-year AID funded project is "A
Quality Life Through Family Planning" in which the concept
of family planning will be integrated with home economics
programs.
The International Family Planning Project PACKET is
available in English and Spanish editions for $2.00 each. Order
from: AHEA, 2010 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington,
D.C. 20036.
The packet includes a brochure "The Time is Nowl
Home Economics and the World's Population Problem".
References and publications listed in the AHEA Project
bibliography will provide a fairly comprehensive list of anti-life
agencies in the United States, both private and governmental.
These sheets are available upon request from the AHEA. Pro-
life references are conspicuous by their complete absence from
the AHEA material.
"Child Welfare League Policies"
The Consortium on Early Childbearing and Childrearing
operates under the aegis of the Child Welfare League of Amerita
(Suite 618, 1145-19th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036)
and is funded by the Federal Government.
The Consortium's two major concerns are (1) the preven-
tion of pregnancy in adolescence and (2) the development of
comprehensive services for school-age parents. A variety of
workshops, conference and consultation services come under
its sponsorship.
In its Winter, 1972 issue of SHARINGS, Planned Parent-
hood's legal brain, Harriet Pilpel discusses the legal rights of
young people — legal rights pertaining to contraceptive services
and abortion. With one exception, the views expressed in this
particular issue are similar to those of Miss Pilpel. The excep-
tion appears to be that of Linda Jenstrom, of the Consortium.
However, for the record, it should be noted that under
the revised Child Welfare League Association standards we read:
Recognition of availability of birth control and legal abortion.
Thus the league's interest in child abuse and child protection
does not extend to occupants of the mother's womb.
Though the information concerning SHARING is some-
what dated, the Coalition is bringing it to Pro-life attention
because of the Office of Child Development's Parenthood Edu-
cation program which will effect 500.000 teenagers in 500
school districts by September 1973 as a "pilot" project In
addition to "parenthood" courses, existing programs, such as
home economics are expected to be altered to include the
course also.
Head of the program is W. Stanley Kruger. The curricu-
68
lum materials were prepared by the Education Development
Center of Cambridge, Mass. with a more than $570,000 grant
from the Office of Child Development.
Additionally $500,000 in grants was made to several
national voluntary youth-serving organizations. We will pub-
lish this listing in our next mailing.
ABORTION SEMINARS
"Advance in Death Technology - Abortion Symposiums"
C/n May 16, 1970 the Society for Humane Abortion
sponsored the FIRST AMERICAN SYMPOSIUM ON OFFICE
ABORTIONS in San Francisco. Seventy-two people attended,
42 of whom were physicians.
The panelists included attorney Richard Bowers, founder
of 2PG and currently on the Board of Directors of NPG; SHA
President, Patricia T. Maginnis, abortionist W.J. Bryan Hernie,
D. O. of Grove, Oklahoma, David B. Cheek, M. D. of the Pacific
Medical Center of San Francisco and NARAL V. P. Lana Clarke
Phelan.
John Lang, represented the Berkeley Tonometer Com-
pany, manufacturers of Berkeley vacuum aspiration machines
— vibrodilator probes and vacurettes.
The following comments were selected from the proceed-
ings of the symposium —
Following the showing of "Uterine Aspiration" prepared
in the Dept. of Ob-Gyn at the University of Michigan Medical
Center, the audience asked Mr. Lang what pressure he recom-
mended for aspiration.
He replied: "All you can get. The Berkeley machine
should be set for maximum vacuum ... 73. Holding the vacuum
down to minus 55-60 may not accomplish evacuation."
When questioned about the advantages of the vibrodila-
tor, Dr. Gregory Smith who claimed his experience to be with
150 abortions stated: "Well, you can't live without it once
you've used it . . ."
When Dr. Cheek was asked if he told his abortion patients
about the risks (informed consent) he replied, "No. Would you?"
and explained that informed consent "is the worst kind of con-
sent you can get" because you are telling the patient the ex-
pectancy of trouble . . ." Asked about the use of non-anxiety
provoking words by a Planned Parenthood worker. Dr. Cheek
said he didn't use the word scrape but rather "we're going to
take out some tissue . . ."
The abortionists in the audience complained that while
they were operating all they wanted to on Saturdays and
Sundays, they were often stymied by the lack of nurses and
anethesiologists to which Dr. Nancy McCall replied, "Yes. We
have a problem of a lot of up-tight nurses who for some reason
or other won't help, and if those happen to be the same ones
on call, we're up a creek."
Speaking on attitudes about pain control. Dr. Cheek
claimed that "The sooner we get rid of those laws, and make
abortion a common sense extension of contraceptive care, the
easier the problem of pain control will become."
(In October 23, 1971 a second Symposium on Clinic and
Office Abortion Procedures was held in Madison, Wisconsin.
The proceedings were later published by the Society for Humane
Abortion.
Symposium participants and moderators included:
E. James Lieberman, M.D. Psychiatric Consultant, Preterm
Clinic, Washington, D.C.
Sadja Goldsmith, M.D., Director of Teenage Services, P.P.-W.P.
San Francisco
Sarah Lewit, Biomedical Division, Population Council, N.Y.
Harold Rosen, M.D. of Johns Hopkins, Baltimore
Alfred L. Kennan, M.D. Director, Midwest Medical Center,
Madison, Wisconsin
Speaking on the role of preparing the patient. Dr. Gold-
smith of P.P. says she uses the analogy that (up to about six
weeks gestation) "an abortion is something like bringing on a
period." She also tells her young patients that "When I was
about your age I had an abortion, and later on when the time
was right, I had children." According to Dr. Goldsmith, who
later describes abortion techniques with Dr. Alan Margolis,
the young teenager wants to see someone as a model to make
having an abortion acceptable.
However, the question of doing too many abortions was
raised by abortionist Dr. Joseph Blanchard who admitted that
at first he could do twelve abortions a day, but that he found
the procedure to be too big of an emotional drain. Now he
doesn't schedule any more than two saltings and four vacuums
in any one day.
In a discussion of techniques and procedures using para-
medics. Dr. Bernard Nathanson of Women's Services, N.Y.
stated that he ran into strong resistance against using paramedi-
cal abortionists when he spoke in and around Harlem and other
black areas of N.Y.C. "I was virtually stoned out of every one
of these meetings . . . nobody was going to experiment on them
. . . they wanted doctors and only doctors . . ."
Regarding the status of minors seeking abortions. Dr.
Rosen of John Hopkins stated that "any female in our state,
once pregnant (the youngest I have seen was eleven and one-
half) is, in the eyes of our law, not a minor, but an adult. It is
neither necessary or obligatory to inform her parents about an
abortion . . ."
Dr. A. Frans Koome summed up the proceedings very
well when he said, "The whole question of abortion is pretty
much a matter of economics . . ."
| hree months later, on December 9-10, 1972, the Battelle
Population Study Center in Seattle, Washington organized and
conducted a workshop on current and improved means of preg-
nancy termination. The proceedings were summarized by
Diana Schneider Johnson. Ph.D. of the Medical College of Vir-
ginia in "Termination of Pregnancy: Current and Future Direc-
tions."
Participants included:
Malcolm Potts, M.D., Medical Director, International Planned
Parenthood Federation
Leonard E. Laufe, M.D. of West Penn Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pa.
69
Dr. Harvey Karman (Los Angeles)
Dr. Ronald J. Pion and Harry J. Levin Univ. of Hawaii
Dr. R. T. Ravenholt, Director of the Aid Population Office
According to Dr. Potts, IPPF, those people who use fairly
reliable contraceptive methods are more likely to use abortion
than any other group and the availability of legal postconception
fertility control reinforces interest in family planning and in-
creases the credibility of family planning programs. Dr. Potts
suggested that abortion when combined with traditional con-
traceptive methods was safer than either abortion or use of orals
alone.
Dr. Pion, playing the semantics game suggests that the
termination procedure is similar to an "endometrial biopsy"
for which very little patient preparation is necessary.
Discussion of the advances in death technology included
demonstration of various vacuum machines and discussion of
current and new abortion techniques including vacuum aspira-
tion, use of hand and foot pumps (Goldsmith), modified bicycle
pump (Potts), chemical abortifacients (Pion), the "supercoil"
(Karman), and electric probes (Pion).
On the .subject of pre-aspiration procedures, the author*
reports that "Dr. Ravenholt proposed that it might be feasible
to use a jet injector similar to that used in mass innoculations
..." in administering paracervical anesthesia, (from: Contra-
ception, an international journal published by Geron-X, Inc.
Box 1108, Los Altos, California 94022. Subscription rate -
$30.00 per year)
All of the above symposiums reveal the classic anti-life
mentality of the abortion establishment. To obtain file copies
write:
Society of Humane Abortion, Box 1862 - San Francisco,
Cal. 94101
First American Symposium on Office Abortions- $2.00
per copy
Abortion in the Clinic and Office Setting - $1 .00 per copy
D. J. Prager, Battelle Population Study Center - 4000
N.E. 41st Seattle, Washington 98105 - no charge
for single copy.
"Abortion - The Freedom Not To"
On May 30, 1973 a dozen representatives of national reli-
gious, civil liberties and women's organizations appeared in
Washington, D.C. to protest Federal health legislation which
would permit any hospital or any other facility funded by the
Federal government to refuse to allow abortions and/or sterili-
zations in their institution.
Among those in attendance at a news conference to dis-
cuss the protest was Carol Foreman of the Women's Equality
Action League. Mrs. Foreman is perhaps better known in her
position as the Executive Director of Rockefeller's Citizens
Committee on Population Growth and the American Future.
The other agencies represented were:
American Civil Liberties Union • YWCA • NOW • Planned
Parenthood • Church of the Brethern • National Council of
Jewish Women • United Church of Christ • United Methodist
Church • American Baptist Churches, USA • National Women's
Political Caucus 'Women's Lobby, Inc.
As of July 2, 1973, nine lawsuits to compel public hospi-
tals to perform abortions are already in full swing with plans
being readied for the rest of the nation. Prime movers are the
ACLU and NARAL. Current target states are New Jersey,
Massachusetts, Texas, Minnesota, Missouri, Florida, Ohio, Wis-
consin and Indiana.
The action was predicted in the January 1973 USCL
Newsletter following the evaluation of OPERATION LAWSUIT
relating to sterilization.
"Planned Parenthood School Scandal Breaks in Maryland"
On February 9, 1973 the public spotlight was turned on procedures used for obtaining secretive abortions for minors, when a
young girl developed a serious infection resulting from a saline abortion requiring that her parents be informed of the operation on
their child.
Involved in the controversy were public school personnel, Montgomery County (Md.) public officials. Planned Parenthood and
various abortion clinics.
It was confirmed that an average of 10 minor girls PER WEEK were given preliminary tests in Montgomery high schools by a
representative of the County Health Department called into the schools by either the school nurse or a counselor.
Should the pregnancy test prove positive, the girls are referred to the Planned Parenthood Association by the County Health
Department employee. Planned Parenthood then carries out the scheduling of the abortions in Baltimore and elsewhere. At no
point in the procedure are parents notified of the action up to and including the abortion fee which is paid by the county. Under
the system, members of the high school staff, teachers and nurses are given the option of referring students to parents or a minister
or doctor or school nurse when they seek contraception and/or abortion assistance.
In Maryland as of mid-1971 minors can obtain abortion, contraception and venereal disease treatment without parental con-
sent or knowledge as the result of the passage of State Senate Bill 201 .
Senate Bill 690 has been introduced which would require that persons under the age of 16 obtain parental consent before
receiving the above "services". Montgomery County curriculum on contraception and abortion if approved will begin with 13 year
olds this Fall.
Pro-life action has been lead by Parents Who Care (PWC) of Bethesda and Chevy Chase, Maryland.
70
FOREIGN NEWS
"Los Supermachos Brings Congressional Inquiry"
The funding by the Agency for International Development
(USAI D) of the blasphemous Spanish birth control comic book,
Los Supermachos which features a Mexican woman kneeling
before a statue of the Blessed Mother praying
'Little Virgin, you who conceived without sinning,
teach me to sin without conceiving.'
has prompted a Congressional inquiry into the agency's popula-
tion activities.
Congressman Clement J. Zablocki of Wisconsin has asked
for a full explanation of the matter from Dr. John A. Hannah,
head administrator of AID. Following a national press release
by the Coalition on June 30, demanding a public apology from
Dr. R. T. Ravenholt who administers the AID Office of Pop-
ulation Affairs, Dr. Ravenholt was asked for a statement by the
Washington Press. Response: No comment.
For the record, the comic book was ordered by the Pana-
manian Health and Population Ministries on Nov 15, 1972 and
funded by AIData cost of $1,100 under Title X of the Foreign
Assistance Art.
The AID grant is also under investigation by the Justice
Department based on pro-life charges of violation of Church
and State.
EVERY CONGRESSMAN AND SENATOR should be
sent a copy of the Los Supermachos cover with details of AID
funding and a request that he support a FULL Congressional
inquiry into the anti-life activities of the Agency for Inter-
national Development's Abortion- Sterilization-Population Con-
trol programs abroad. Coalition Los Supermachos reprints
are available at cost: 20 cents each. USCL No. 132.
Editor's Note: The origin of Los Supermachos is Mexico.
On December 12, 1972, the Mexican Bishops issued a Pastoral
letter on Responsible Parenthood in which they welcomed the
government's announced Family Planning Program and laid
special emphasis on the married couple's inalienable right to
decide its family's size in accordance with the concrete circum-
stances of their lives. (Full text available from the Division for
Latin America of the USCC.)
According to a ZPG report, the author of this booklet,
Lie. Octavio Colmenacres says he received a letter of congratu-
lations from the head of the family planningoff ice of the Mexi-
can government's Secretariat of Health and Assistance.
Additionally, the International Planned Parenthood Fed-
eration has its anti-life rear in full gear in Mexico and there have
been an assortment of statements on the use of Mex ican women
to test new "contraceptive" agents which will probably be
abortifacient in nature.
The Coalition thus commends the following sobering re-
flection by Anthony Zimmerman of Japan to the Mexican bish-
ops and other pro-life colleagues at home and abroad as well:
". . . in the context of today's INSTANT POPULATION
CONTROL programs, which are detonating abortion ex-
plosions all over the world, a Bishop might find himself,
sadly, the camp of pro-abortionists from the moment he
joins the anti-population clique. He might be excused
because of ignorance; but we hope that Bishops will not
be ignorant, to the detrimentand death-of the unborn.
Dreamers and naive people might still believe that it is
possible to launch a national population control policy
successfully via mass media, the manipulation of public
opinion, and economic inventives, with the expectation
that no great increase in abortions will follow; but
country after country has exploded the dream. THE
HARD FACT IS THAT ANTI-BIRTH POLICY AND
ABORTION IS A PACKAGE PURCHASE: YOU
CAN'T BUY ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER . . ."
from A Criticism of Assumptions and Objections
of the Manila Population Seminar May 9, 1973
Nagaya, Japan
"Children's Aid Society - Vanguard for the Unborn"
The Children's Aid Society and all such societies should
come forward to speak on behalf of the rights of the unborn
and the sanctity of all human life. "Let us protect the unborn,
intact and deformed. Let us protect the unborn, illegitimate
or high-born. Let us protect the unborn, wanted or unwanted.
Let us proclaim as a Children's Aid Society that we are for life
and preservation of life."
These stirring words were taken from a 34-page Brief to
the Board of Directors of the Ottawa Children's Aid Society
prepared by David Dehler of Ottawa, a legal advocate for the
unborn child.
A summary of the Brief is available from the Coalition.
(USCL Reprint No. 128-50 cents)
Retarded Patients and Sterilization and Abortion Counselling
Writing in the Canadian Family Physician, March, 1973
issue, Mr. Charles W. Smiley, the chief social worker at the
Rockwood Mental Retardation Unit of Kingston Psychiatric
Hospital, Kingston, Ontario attempts to provide some basic
guidelines to family physicians in the area of the retarded and
sterilization and abortion counceling.
The two mainareasof concern of Mr. Smiley center upon
(1) the improvement of the retarded patient's physical and
emotional health by eliminating or limiting the stress of child
bearing and rearing and (2) the PRIMARY prevention of poten
tially severe mental retardation in certain high risk pregnancies.
According to Mr. Smiley, retarded persons capable of liv-
ing in the community are almost always willing to be sterilized
or have "therapeutic abortions". If the IQ of the patient is
under 55, consent must be obtained from the family, or if no
next-of-kin is available the superintendent of the institution in
consultation with another medical person.
Among the recommendations offered are that sterilization
and abortion be recommended and be easily available for
retardates when their IQ is less than 55. This should apply also
to retardates with an IQ range of 55 to 70 where significant
emotional instability factors are present. Grounds for abortion
also include "deleterious effect" on the health of the mother
71
who must care for a retarded child. Here Smiley mentions the
new "preventative" techniques such as amniocentesis to make
"Intervention" more reliable and selective. Mr. Smiley's IQ is
not indicated in the article.
"European Birthrate Declines"
It is not advisable to permit the birthrate on the Conti-
nent to drop any lower advises Dr. Leon Tabah of the Pans
National Institute of Demographic Studies. Two factors cited
as having the most influence on birth control practices are (1)
socioprofessional status of each couple - the higher the
husband's income, the more numerous the children and (2) the
working or non-working status of the wife - difficult working
conditions outside the home for wives depress the birth rate.
(Medical World News 4/27/73)
"Mental Health and Sweden - the Malthusian State"
In People! Challenge to Survival, William Vogt, a former
President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America
(PP WPI cites Malthusian Sweden as an example of the ideal
population control state. No doubt he must have turned thrice-
over in his grave when the Department of Social Affairs in
Sweden recently concluded that 25% of the total Swedish pop-
ulation is in need of psychiatric treatment, that alcoholism has
risen 424% in a decade; that suicide among the young and
middle-aged has almost doubled in less than 20 years; that
there is widespread dissatisfaction among young mothers in
maternity wards on how to cope with their newborns after they
leave the hospital and other problems related to young people
including drug ingestion. (L.A. Times, 4/1 1/73)
Thus while Swedish dollars flow into an assortment of
international population control schemes including the United
Nations Fund for Population Activity in order to help develop-
ing countries in their struggle against the predominance of
people, the Swedish Department of Social Affairs has recom-
mended that there be an extensive mental health campaign in
order to cure the people and relieve their stress and strains
prompted, in part at least, by their Malthusian values so ap-
propriately detailed in Vogt's anti-life classic.
S The United States Coalition for Life joins with Prince
P Juan Carlos to honor the pro-life activities of Dr. Soroa Pineda
A of Madrid.
I Dr. Pineda has recently authored "El Aborto es un Cri-
N men" (Abortion is a Crime) and is engaged in creating the de-
sign and printing of a pro-life stamp to be used throughout the
world in three languages - English, Spanish and French.
The Coalition has been in contact with Dr. Pineda and
the French "Laissez les Vivres", as well as pro-life groups and
individuals throughout Canada, Latin and South America, India,
Ireland, and England in order to form a World League for the
Defense of Lite. Our initial project is to establish communica-
tion bases in every nation of the world so as to exchange infor-
mation on such topics as international laws on abortion and
strategy for the 1974 World Population Conference. The USCL
will issue a special mailing on the 1974 World Population Con-
ference-Year in September.
We ask that you send a sampling of your newsletter and
available literature to:
Dr. Antonio De Soroa Y Pineda
Jenner, 8
Madrid - 4 Espana
London — The population of the United Kingdom increased by
only 131 ,000 last year. Births declined by an astonishing 7.7%,
while the death rate was higher than usual. (World 7/31/73)
Japan — The Supreme Court decision has hurt anti-abortion
sentiment in Japan. In June of 1972, the Diet was prepared to
pass an amendment to eliminate economic reasons for abortion,
but the move was unsuccessful since the opposition party was
blocking practically all bills before the election.
In late May, the Mainichi Daily News carried a feature,
"Lib, Pills and Morals in Abortion Discussion" based on the
current struggle for revision of the Eugenic Protection Law.
The Institute of Population Problems has stated that af-
ter the last world war there have been 8 abortions for every 10
births in Japan. Newspapers are carrying an increasing number
of stories of the desertion of newborns as well as pregnant wo-
men of seven and eight months who are trying to be talked out
of abortions and give their child to a childless couple seeking
adoption.
The revision is directed at both the economic clause for
abortion, as well as the "fetus" clause permitting about to eli-
minate defective unborn. The latter drive is being launched by
handicapped people who see the killing of imperfect beings as
being discriminatory and in violation of the equality of all men
guaranteed in the Constitution.
Women's Lib protestors have staged layins in Japanese
ministry offices stating that contraception and abortion are
necessary to give them full control of their own bodies.
Zimmerman's Works Now Available - The Coalition is proud to announce that a number of Anthony Zimmerman's (SVD. STD.)
works on population and abortion are currently being reprinted for use by pro-life researchers.
"How to Get 6,000 Abortions a Day" (USCL Reprint No. 1 16 - 50 cents)
"Population Growth Can't Be As Bad As All That" (USCL Reprint 129-90 cents)
"The Manila Population Seminar - A Critique" (USCL Reprint No. 131)
Also available: Japan's 22 Year Experience With A Liberal Abortion Law, Marriage and Family Newsletter, Box 6066,
Collegeville, Mn. 56321 - $1.25 each.
72
REFERENCE PUBLICATIONS
Research in Prostaglandins - Published by the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology. 222 Maple Ave., Shrewsbury, Mass.
01545 and the Population Information Program of George Washington University Medical Center, 2001 S Street, N.W. Suite 702,
Washington, D.C./No Charge.
Contains data on the clinical use of prostaglandins in fertility control research 1970-1972. The report based on studies involv-
ing endogenous prostaglandins, human tissue IN VITRO, and animals was financed by the U.S. Agency for International Develop-
ment (AID).
World Health Organization and Human Reproduction Research - Pro-life physicians will be particularly interested in the WHO's
projects relating to fertility control. Projects involving^bortifacient research, the implantation process, sperm regulation, ovulation
detection, and the sequelae of abortion and vasal occlusion.
The WHO has initiated a number of task forces in these and related areas concerning human reproduction, and has established
at least 20 reproductive research centers including one in Los Angeles at Women's Hospital, USC Medical Center (prostaglandins).
Pro-life physicians and researchers wishing to obtain additional information concerning membership on such task forces and
participation in WHO's program should write: Richard Wilson, M.D.
Human Reproduction Unit
World Health Organization
1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland
Center for Disease Control: Abortion Surveillance Report - published by the Department of HEW and available without charge
from: PHMHA, Center for Disease Control, Epidemiology Program, Family Planning Evaluation Branch, Atlanta, Georgia 30333.
Well known abortion advocates and abortitoriums make contributions to this government publication. Pro-life input is necessary
and should be sent directly to CDC Director, David J. Sencer, M.D. after reviewing samples of the report.
Abortion Research Notes published by the International Reference Center for Abortion Research, 8555 — 16th St, Silver Spring,
Md. 20910. Available on request. The Center was organized in mid- 1972 by the Washington Office of AIR/Transnational Family
Research Institute. Leading abortion advocates such as Dr. M. Potts and Dr. C. Tietze sit on the I RCAR international advisory board.
This publication is an excellent source of anti-life references and information.
Population Dynamics Quarterly — A new publication of the International Program for Population Analysis. Available on request
from the Smithsonian Institute, Interdisciplinary Communications Program, 1717 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036.
(English, French or Spanish editions issued simultaneously.)
Family Planning/Population Reporter — A Review of State Laws and Policies. Published bi-monthly by Planned Parenthood. Avail-
able on request from: Center for Family Planning Program Development, 1660 L. Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. Provides
an excellent listing of current legislation related to abortion, contraception, sterilization and population control. Also included is
information on hearings, health and welfare policies, court decisions and government programs in the above areas. Editorials anti-
life bias throughout.
Population Report — Available on request from: The Population Information Program, George Washington University Medical Cen-
ter, 2001 S St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009. Program funded by AID. Information on a variety of topics related to fertility con-
trol including prostaglandins, abortion, and intrauterine devices. Order information by topic.
Pro- Life Materials
The Great American Stork Market Crash by Frances Freeh. Published by Liguori Publications, Liguori, Mo. 63057 $1.50. One
of the finest pro-life works on population control. The author is Missouri's representative on the National Right to Life Committee,
Inc.
The Best of Father Paul Marx, author of the classic, The Death Peddlers is now on cassettes. Topics include abortion and euthanasia.
For details write: Right to Life, 2550 Via Tejon, Palos Verdes Estates, Cal. 90274, Tel. (213) 378-5243.
Natural Family Planning editor's packet. Excellent material for newsletters and general membership. Write: Human Life Founda-
tion, Larry Kane, Director, 1776 K. Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006.
Population Growth - The Advantages by Colin Clark. Find population resource book which is as readable as it is accurate and infor-
mative. A companion guide to Robert Sassone's Handbook on Population. Order both from L.I.F.E., 900 N. Broadway, Suite 725,
Santa Ana. Cal. 92701.
73
U.S. Coalition for Life was created to serve as a national and
international clearing house for Pro-Life organizations and
individuals seeking information, documentation, research
materials in the areas of population control euthanasia, genetic
engineering, abortion and related areas. Its primary function
is that of service.
The U.S.C.L, Reprint Service is designed to provide docu-
mentation and resource materials for the Pro- Life Movement
Costs include both copying and postage expenses. All reprints
are to be used as study copies only. In the case of copyrighted
materials, permission must be obtained from the publisher or
author directly, except for brief quotes which may be used with
proper credit. Portions of Newsletter may be reproduced with
proper credit
ATTENTION
New subscription rate will become effective September 1, 1973.
Individual subscription: $5.00 a year.
Organization subscription: $25.00 a year.
Bulk rate for August issue: $.50 each.
Back issues: $.25 each.
REMINDER
This is the last complimentary copy to be made available
togroupsand pro-life individuals who are not USCL subscribers.
COMING EVENTS
Special Fall issue and mailings on Population Education including:
The Rockefeller Population Packet
Harvard's Plan-A-Fam classroom game
The Anti-Lifers Invade the Classroom
as well as the latest information on World Population Year - and Conference 1974.
74
Vol. 3 No. 6
Spring, 1974
Randy Engel, Editor
Published by: U.S. Coalition for Life Educational Fund • Box 315, Export, Pa. 15632
S. 1708 - H.R. 11511*
A PROLIFE GUIDE TO FEDERAL ANTILIFE ABUSES
Coalition Testimony on H.R. 11511 - March 8, 1974
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON S.1708 AND H.R. 11511
Mr. Chairman: Members of the subcommittee: I am Randy
Engel, Executive Director of the United States Coalition for
Life, and lam offering this testimony on HR 11511, the Health
Revenue Sharing and Health Services Act of 1973 on behalf of
the United States Coalition for Life, an international research
agency and clearing house on all aspects of population control
and so-called government "family planning" legislation and
programs. My remarks will be directed primarily to Title III.
The Family Planning and Population Research Act of 1973.
Background
In order that my testimony be viewed in its proper context,
I wish to comment briefly on the manner in which the public
hearings on HR 11511 were conducted and my general obser-
vations and experience with its companion bill in the Senate.
S. 1708, the Family Planning and Population Research Act of
1973. now before the Labor and Public Welfare Committee.
The interest and concern of the United States Coalition for
Life in the Senate and House version of the Family Planning
and Population Research Act of 1973 and similar measures is a
matter of public record.
On May 8, 9 and 10. 1973 the Subcommittee on Human
Resources of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public
Welfare held public hearings on HR 11511's companion bill
S. 1708.
As with the similar hearings on family planning — popula-
tion control such as the pioneer Gruening Committee hearings
on S. 1676 of the mid-60's and Cranston hearings on S.J.R.
108 calling for a national policy of "population stabilization",
the hearings on S. 1708 were carefully orchestrated so as to
produce an overwhelming record in favor of continued and
expanded federal family planning-population programs.
On the afternoon of May 10, 1974, the last day of the
hearings, I was permitted approximately twelve minutes of
hearing time to present an oral summary of my testimony for
the U.S. Coalition for Life as part of a "pro-life" panel of
approximately one hour duration.
My full testimony consisted of a summary of violations of
the 1970 Family Planning and Population Services Bill
(Tydings Act) by governmental and private entities and a
documented brief in support of the charges which was given to
Senator Alan Cranston, at the conclusion of my oral presenta-
tion, for inclusion in the final record.
Gentlemen, the record for S1708 hearings have been
published. I draw your attention to the fact that not only
was my documentation excluded but that there is no indication
that such documentation is contained in the files of Senator
Cranston's subcommittee office. I am sure you would welcome
Senator Cranston's explanation on this matter should he chose
to reply.
CALL FOR CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION
My testimony on S. 1708 was designed not only to sub-
stantiate charges of violations of the Tydings Bill but moreover
to provide the impetus for a full Congressional investigation
of the multitude of abuses of government population control
programs which run the gamut from abortifacient research to
violations of civil and constitutional rights, from fertility
control experimentation on the poor to promotion of the
Sangerite credo and others.
Since my appearance before Senator Cranston last year,
there have been three major events to support such an investi-
gation of the entire spectrum of federal family planning-popula-
tion control programs, namely (1) the involuntary sterilization
of two black girls in Montgomery, Alabama and welfare women
in Aiken County, South Carolina, (2) the National Institutes of
Health investigation and debate on fetal experimentation and
(3) federal grand jury indictment of Louisiana's Birth Control
Czar, Joe D. Beasley, M.D. for alleged mishandling of $12.2
million in federal family planning grants.
"As of May 20, 1974 H.R. 11511 (incl. Title III)
has been withdrawn and H.R. 14214 (Title II - the
Family Planning and Population Research Act of
1974) offered as a substitute bill. It is scheduled
to go before the full House Committee on Interstate
and Foreign Commerce for markup. No hearings are
scheduled by Rep. Rogers' Subcommittee on Public
Health and Environment.
75
Thus far Secretary of Health, trocation and Welfare
Casper Weinberger has chosen to evade a Coalition request for
an impartial investigation, referring the matter instead of the
office of Louis Hellman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Population Affairs.' J Likewise, Senator Henry Jackson of
the Subcommittee on Governmental Activities has refused to
take up the matter. 3 We are currently exploring other avenues
including of course you. Representative Rogers, as both
sponsor of HR 11511 and chairman of the Subcommittee on
Public Health and Environment. So much for S. 1708.
Now let us turn briefly to the matter of public hearings on
HR 11511 held for six days beginning on Thursday, February
14th and concluding on Friday, February 22, 1974. As I
mentioned earlier, our interest in bills related to family planning
and population control are a matter of public record.
On November 1, 1973 I received a reply from clerk W. E.
Williamson of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign
Commerce to my request to testify at future hearings related
to federal family planning programs including H.R. 3381
(Mr. Dellums). 4
Similarly on November 5th I received a communication
from Lee S. Hyde, M.D. also a committee staff member
confirming hearing information on H.R. 6021 (Mr. Dellums)
and H.R. 6139 (Mr. duPont). 5
Additionally I understand that members of Life Lobby Inc.
met with Representative' Rogers on January 22, 1974 and
expressed an interest in testifying at future sub-committee
hearings on family planning and related measures. Their names
were to be added to the clerk's register.
How is it then, that with the exception of Msgr. McHugh of
the USCC, neither the U.S. Coalition for Life, or Life Lobby
nor any other independent pro-life group was informed of the
hearing date or invited to give testimony on H.R. 1 1511 while
a litany of well-known anti-life agencies including Planned
Parenthood and Zero Population Growth were given an oppor-
tunity to air their views on this piece of legislation. I believe a
detailed explanation of the reason for omitting pro-life
groups' testimony at the public hearings should be entered by
the Subcommittee Chairman, Rep. Paul Rogers and Committee
Clerk Williamson, since there appears to be some disagreement
as to who is responsible for the "oversight". Such an explana-
tion is necessary to dissipate fears that the hearings were
"rigged" so as to make an overwhelming case for continued
and expanded family planning and population control programs
via H.R. 11511 or the Administration bill sponsored by Javits
in the Senate (S. 1632) and to silence the opposition to such
measures. 6
I hope this background information will be helpful to all
subcommittee members and that it will provide a suitable
backdrop for my remarks on H.R. 1 1 51 1 .
TITLE III - THE FAMILY PLANNING AND POPULATION RESEARCH ACT OF 1973
The official position of the United States Coalition for Life — in principle and in practice — is one of opposition to Title III — the
Family Planning and Population Research Act of 1973 and all similar measures which feed the ever expanding population control
bureaucracy of the Federal Government leading to a host of anti-life programs and practices. Such activities continue to flourish
even amidst specific congressional legislation designed to curb such abuses.
I welcome this opportunity to highlight some of the more
gross violations of the Tydings Bill and to support my charges
with the necessary documentation. So that I may be assured
that my documentation will not meet with the same fate as
the documentation provided for S. 1708, I have attempted to
keep such material to the minimum needed to substantiate my
charges. Additional documentation of footnoted materials is
available to both the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce
Committee as well as the Senate Labor and Public Welfare
Committee.
VIOLATION OF ABORTION PROHIBITION AMENDMENT
The 1970 Family Planning and Population Service Act
(P.L. 91-572) contained the following provision:
(Title X. "Sec. 1008 None of the funds appropriated
under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is
a method of family planning.")
The Conference Report accompanying the FY 1972 HEW
Appropriations Act (P.L. 92-80, 92nd Cong.), 1st Sess. (1971)
expressed the following intent:
"The Committee of Conference is agreed that in population
research, the prohibition in Title X of abortion as a method
of family planning should not be construed so as to prevent
scientific research into the causes of abortion and its effects
H.R. Rep. No. 92-461, 92nd Congress, 1st Sess. 8(197!)."
The question of violation — of the spirit and letter of the
Abortion Prohibition Amendment therefore, involves three
basic criteria.
First, the definition of abortion as used in the amendment.
Second, the overall intent and language of the abortion
prohibition amendment
Third, the overall intent and language of the Conference
Committee Report section on "scientific research . . ."
First — At the time of the passage of the Abortion Prohibition
Amendment the following definition of abortion by the
Department of HEW was known to be in effect.
Abortion "all the measures which impair the via-
bility of the zygote at any time between the
instant of fertilization and the completion of labor
constitute in the strict sense, procedures for
inducing abortion." (U.S. Dept. of Health, Educa-
tion and Welfare, Public Health Service, publica-
tion 1066 (Washington, 1963), p. 27)
No distinction is made between surgical techniques and
abortion accomplished by drugs or devices. Thus, it would
appear that any drugs or device whose primary mode of action
57-782 O - 76
76
was abortifacient in nature would be preceded from family
planning programs in which abortion was prohibited.
Thus the Abortion Prohibition Amendment posed a dilemma
for those who wished to incorporate abortion measures (parti-
cularly non-surgical ^TCthods) into family planning programs
funded under Title X, and at the same time desired to avoid
charges of violating the prohibition.
REDEFINING ABORTION
The impass was resolved by a re-defining of abortion and
related terms by the Department of HEW.
In November 1973, Family Planning Digest, a publication
of the Bureau of Community Health Services Administration,
U.S. Dept. of HEW, edited by Planned Parenthood - World
Population, published "A Glossary of Family Planning Ter-
minology."
The glossary was approved by the National Family Planning
Forum in May, 1973 and was developed by the Forum's
Committee on Terminology chaired by Dr. Louise B. Tyrer of
the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Other Committee members included Dr. Lu Davis (N.J.), Dr.
Theodore Scurletis (N.C.), Dr J. King Seegar (MD.) and
Frederick S. Jaffee of P.P. - W.P. (N.Y.)
The glossary includes the following terminology:
Conception - Implantation of the blastocyst. Not synonymous
with fertilization (from Obstetric Gynecologic Terminology,
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists).
Fertilization - Union of the male sperm cell and the female
ovum.
Pregnancy - State of a female after conception until termina-
tion of gestation.
Abortion — Expulsion or extraction of all (complete) or any
part (incomplete) of the placenta or membranes without an
identifiable fetus or with a live born infant or a stillborn
infant weighing less than 500 gm. In the absence of known
weight, an estimated length of gestation of less than 20
completed weeks (130 days or less), calculated from the
first day of the last normal menstrual period may be used.
Abortion is a term referring to the culmination of the birth
process before the twentieth completed week of gestation.
Fertility Regulation — Medical and nonmedical techniques that
enable individuals to engage in voluntary planning and action
to have the number of children they want, when and if
they want them. These techniques include contraception,
infertility diagnosisand treatment, abortion and sterilization.
Similarly, on November 16, 1973, the National Institute of
Health of the Department of HEW published "Protection of
Human Subjects" in the Federal Register (Vol. 38, No. 221).
The NIH glossary included the following definitions:
Pregnancy - encompasses the period of time from implanta-
tion until delivery . . .
Fetus — means the product of conception from the time of
implantation to the time of delivery from the uterus.
Having then re defined conception and pregnancy as begin-
ning with implantation rather than fertilization, early abortion
techniques which go under the euphanism of "menstrual extrac
tion" or "hormonal interception" 7 or "post-conceptive fertility
control 8 or abortion achieved by drugs such as Diethylstil-
bestrol (DES) (Morning-after-pill) or by devices such as the
IUD 9 - '0. II are permitted to be funded under Title X,
Sec. 1008.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD AND TITLE X FUNDING
Secondly, let us examine the language and intent of the
Abortion Prohibition Amendment.
On February 14, 1974, a memo was sent from the Education
and Public Welfare Division of the Congressional Research
Service of the Library of Congress to the Honorable John H.
Dent (acting under a request from the U.S. Coalition for Life).
The substance of the memo centered upon the funding of
Planned Parenthood - Los Angeles under the Tydings Act
(1970 Family Planning and Population Services Act). 12
The memo reads in part, ". . . please note that the question
pertaining to P.P. - L.A.'s performing abortions or providing
abortion counseling is not mentioned. Since P.P. - L.A. is
funded through the Tydings Act. SUCH ABORTION RELAT-
ED ACTIVITIES AS MENTIONED ABOVE ARE PROHIB-
ITED BY LAW . Therefore, that particular question is not
germaine." (emphasis added)
I believe that the CRS memo accurately reflects both the
letter and the spirit of the Abortion Prohibition Amendment.
The question of abortion-related activities of PP LA IS
germaine since Planned Parenthood - Los Angeles engages in
such activities, while receiving funding under the Tydings Act.
I ask that the contents of the attached article "The Abortion
Kick-backs" be examined with great care by this subcom
mittee. Reporter, Roger Rappaport of New Times makes two
serious charges against PP-LA. I quote in part
"Planned Parenthood- Los Angeles was violating the
terms of its federal grant in two ways. First, it was receiving
a second payment for "psychological testing and evaluation"
of abortion patients, not permissible under the terms of its
grant. Second, it was failing to report this income to the
federal government. Both these violations could result in
termination of the government funding. More important, if
there was appropriation of unreported revenue by an execu-
tive of a federally funded organization, this could lead to
felony prosecution."
The Coalition believes that it is the responsibility of this
subcommittee, prior to reporting HR11511, to thoroughly
investigate this charge of abuse and misuse of Title X funds and
if necessary subpoena the records of PP-LA officials and the
evidence of Mr. Rappaport as outlined in his article.
However if such an investigation is to have any meaning at
all, then PP-LA's activities must be viewed in the larger context
of the Policies and programs of the parent agency — Planned
Parenthood - World Population, New York City.
The role of Planned Parenthood-World Population in
abortion is candidly discussed by the agency's medical director
George Langmyhr, M.D., in an article by the same name written
in 1971. < 4 I enter this article in full as part of my testimony.
77
Langmyhr namely (1) that "most professionals and volunteers
J associated with Planned Parenthood have accepted, for a long
time, the necessity of abortfon as an integral part of any
complete or total family planning program,'' since P.P. clinic
..personnel cannot avoid dilemmas posed by legitimate method
'failure, or any type of unwanted pregnancy", (2) "that while
P.P. as a non-profit, tax-exempt agency is specifically unable
to lobby or overtly attempt to achieve legislation reform";
. P.P. 's volunteers andprofessionals such as Or. Alan Guttmacher
, can actively participate in advocating abortion law change and
• (3) that P.P. helped prepare various legal briefs which have
; been presented to the courts as a means of effecting change.
i-Dr. Langmyhr cites one major effort in California regarding
. the ability of a minor to consent to an abortion.
Dr. Langmyhr substantiates Planned Parenthood's long-
standing involvement in programs of "abortion information,
[-counseling and referral "which were "necessarily unpublicized."
>te also details quite explicitly Planned Parenthood's role in
tabortion "reform" in California and the establishment of a
I subsidiary Aboritorium unit known as the San Francisco
^Center for Legal Abortion. Likewise, P.P.'s abortion-related
activities are highlighted in Colorado and New York City.
". Details are also provided on the Syracuse Planned Parenthood
Abortion Clinic.' 5
- Dr. Langmyhr concludes with the hope that abortion will
tfcecome even more available and that Planned Parenthood
•"supports repeal of "outdated abortion laws."
Recently Planned Parenthood set up an Abortion Service
Loan Fund and Technical Assistance Program of $1 million for
the purpose of initiating abortion services or expanding existing
facilities.
According to Alfred S. Moran, executive vice president of
Planned Parenthood, NYC, out of 172 P.P. affiliates providing
medical services, eight are performing abortions and 12 others
are setting up services and most do abortion referrals. He
expresses sadness at the fact many P.P. affiliates have not been
more aggressive in providing low cost, non-profit clinics in
their communities. (from "Abortion — One Year After
Supreme Court Decision", Contemporary Ob/Gyn Jan. 1974,
pp. 26-40.I
Planned Parenthood's basic tenet that abortion is an impor-
tant aspect of total "family planning" is spelled out in its
Guidelines for Pregnancy and Abortion Counseling issued by
the National Medical Committee, PP-WP. 16
In the Pljnn^^arenthnod Nm York City brochure
outlining its Family Planning Centers we note that in 1971
PP/NYC opened "the first large scale comprehensive family
planning center in the U.S. As such, it will be a prototype . . .
and will stimulate the conversion of so-called abortion clinics
into facilities that will provide comprehensive birth control
services, not only abortion ... the facility is designed to
perform 8,000 to 10,000 early abortions a year . . ."17
The latest P.P.-W.P. letter form carries a statement of
purpose which reads in part, to provide leadership
"in making effective means of voluntary fertility control,
including contraception, abortion and sterilization, available
and fully accessible to all. " 1 8
Mr. Chairman, members of this subcommittee — Does
Planned Parenthood believe and incorporate into its programs
and policy, abortion, as a means of family planning? The
answer clearly is yes. Does Planned Parenthood and its
affiliates receive extensive funding under Title X. The answer
is clearly yes. I would ask at this point that Rep. Rogers enter
into the record a complete financial audit of PP-WP and its
affiliates, receiving funding under this title, i.e. Title X of the
Tydings Act, by the General Services Administration to
substantiate my statement.
And lastly - does such funding constitute a violation of the
contract of such agencies receiving funding under the Tydings
Act either directly or indirectly through HEW Family Planning
Regional Councils? We believe the answer must again be yes.
Do you, Mr. Chairman and members of this subcommittee
concur? If so, how would you amend Title III of HR 1 1511 to
prohibit such violations? If not, why not?
I would like to interject at this point the related articles
18 and 19 which discuss the relationship between abortion and
contraceptive practice since I understand previous witnesses
have argued that increased federal funding of contraception
and sterilization programs will decrease the need for abortion.
Such statements are made in historical vacuum since experience
shows that while abortion and contraceptive programs are
mutually competitive, they are also mutually stimulating.
The end of this is usually sterilization. Thus if the federal
government goes with the business of birth prevention on the
massive scale in which it is currently engaged, it will be drawn
deeper and deeper into programs of massive abortion and
sterilization and ultimately euthanasia. The latter to deal with
a rapidly aging population.
ABORTION RESEARCH LOOPHOLE
Let us proceed to point three, regarding the language and
intention of the House Conference Report relating to "scientific
research into the causes of abortion and its effects."
The critical issue here is whether or nof this clause permits
the funding under the Tydings Bill of the research, develop
ment and clinical testing of new abortion techniques since a
technique is neither "a cause" nor "an effect".
In a letter dated Jan. 20. 1972 to Senator Richard Schweiker,
Dr. Louis Hellman states there is "no Federal policy concerning
abortion research" and ". . . research to increase the safety of
the procedure is a proper activity." He admits however that
abortion research is funded through the Center for Population
Research, NIH, Dept. of HEW.
In a letter dated February 10, 1972 from Philip Corfman,
M.D., Director of the Center for Population Research to
Congressman John G. Schmitz, Dr. Corfman gives a slightly
different reply on the question of whether or not the Abortion
Prohibition Amendment of Title X covers clinical abortions
and the research and development of new abortion techniques.
I submit the three letters for the record. i0 - 21 ' 22
78
The funding of research, development and clinical testing of new abortion techniques is extensive and well-documented. Regret-
ably, most Congressmen and Senators are totally ignorant to the extent of the committment of the Federal Government to aggres-
sive chemical warfare on unborn children and to the relationship between federal agencies and drug firms which reap vast financial
gain from the marketing of abortifacient drugs and devices.
I wish to enter into the record a letter dated March 1,
1972 from the Senator from Nebraska, Roman L. Hruska to a
Coalition member regarding the role of the Federal government
in the development of chemical "prostaglandins" for induced
abortions. 23
According to Sen. Hruska he had been in touch with HEW
on this matter and, "Federal funds are not supporting the
research into prostaglandins, and the use of this drug has not in
any way been approved by the Federal Government." He
concludes with the thought that his constituent does not have
to be concerned about a problem that "doesn't exist".
For the benefit of Sen. Hruska and others who labor under
similar misinformation, I take this opportunity to set the
record straight.
First, federal funds, that is tax dollars including funds from
the Tydings Bill, have in fact been used to research, to develop
and to carry out clinical testing of prostaglandins for the pur-
pose of induced abortions. Secondly, the Food and Drug
Administration, at the time of Sen. Hruska's letter, had approv-
ed the clinical testing by the UpJohn Company of Kalamazoo,
Michigan.
Evidence to support these charges are found in the 1971
and 1972 Inventory of Federal Population Research prepared
in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Develop-
ment by the Center for Population Research headed by Philip
Corfman, M.D. I include for the record the pages of these
reports 24 giving full details on prostaglandin research and
clinical testing by both the NIH and the Agency for Interna-
tional Development, as well as published articles on such
federally funded research and clinical testing of prostaglandin
abortions which usually result in the delivery of live babies,
whose skin may then be used as a medium for tissue cultures 25
and future experimentation.
TAXPAYER UNDERWRITES UPJOHN ABORTION RESEARCH
I draw your attention in particular to those prostaglandin
contracts made directly to UpJohn Researchers specifically -
(Da four year contract from the NIH in 1969 to John
Johnston of the UpJohn Company. Total project cost:
$200,587. HD 92208
(2)a 1971 contract to Kenneth Kirton of the UpJohn Com-
pany for $41,91 3. HD 12224
Ola 1972 contract to Kenneth Kirton of the UpJohn
Company for $50,247 HD-12224
(4|a 1972 contract to J.W. Wilks of the UpJohn Company
for $88,140. HD-92208
On November 26. 1973 The Food and Drug Administration
approved Prostin F2 for "Therapeutic Abortion". The
application had been filed by the UpJohn Company, Kalama-
zoo, Michigan. 26 According to Medical World News/Dec.
28, 1973 the abortifacient drug will be used primarily in
university based hospitals.
To date the best known of these clinical testing areas are the
University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill
(Dr. C.H. Hendricks and Dr. William E. Brenner) and the
Washington University Medical School. St. Louis (Dr. Arpad I.
Csapo.) These institutions and these key researchers have all
been recipients of federal research grants in the area of prosta-
glandins for induced abortion.
The research office of the U.S. Coalition for Life can pro-
vide in addition to the enclosed two articles, 27 - 28 at least
a dozen grant-contract descriptions of federally funded (AID
and NIH) abortifacient research to this subcommittee.
The American taxpayer has funded these anti-life institu
tions, these researchers and the UpJohrf Company (who provid-
ed the abortifacient for testing) thus contributing to the speed
with which the abortifacient product was approved by the
FDA for marketing on an international scale.
Yet these tax funds were used without any legislative
authority and in spite of the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.
We recommend, therefore, that in the future Congress
specifically prohibit such funding through concrete legislative
action and exert similar curbs on the financing of abortifacient
and sterilization clinical testing and drug-company related
activities, particularly research.
Clearly, family planning legislation, whether under this Title
or others, requires that anti-abortion prohibition sections be
both comprehensive in their scope (i.e. they exclude aborti
facient research and clinical testing and the funding of
organizations such as Planned Parenthood-World Population
and its affiliates which include abortion and related activities
as part of comprehensive family planning services) and explicit
in intent as well as language.
As a means of dramatizing the need for more stringent
legislation, in the light of the large number of anti-life HEW
(and AID) officials which dominate this Administration, I will
briefly highlight our agencies experience in researching a single
NIH abortion research contract.
NIH - DEVELOPMENT OF ABORTION TECHNIQUES
The contract is listed on page 46 of the 1972 Inventory of
Federal Population Research, under the heading of Zygote
Transport, Pre-implantation Development, and Implantation.
Numbered 178 - the contract is titled STUDY IN EXPERI-
79
MENTAL METHODS INTERRUPTINfJ^^EGNANCY (Rats.
Rabbits) HEW-NIH Contract HD-02306. The three year con-
tract (6/70-6/72) totaled $81,700 and was awarded to Dr.
Robert L. Brent of Thomas Jefferson U. in Philadelphia.
A Playboy Forum 1972 news brief carrying the title "Zap,
You're Aborted" and . datelined Philadelphia, notes that
"microwave radiation has been usjd to terminate pregnancies
in rats" and that the technique might be applied as safe, quick
and "noninvasive" abortifacient for humans. The article men-
tions Dr. Brent's experiments using a modified standard
microwave oven to raise the temperature of a pregnant female
rat's uterus resulting in the resorption of the embryo with no
apparent harm to the mother.
Earlier, the March 26, 1971 issue of Science in an article by
Robert Gillette on the alleged inadequacies of federal popula-
tion funding noted that the NIH Contraceptive Research
Branch was currently funding a project "to explore the use of
microwaves and ultra-sound in performing abortions."
Hellman's Answers - In a letter dated April 12, 1972 to the
Honorable Bob Mathias, Dr. Louis Hellman stated that the
(Brentl study is being conducted on rats and rabbits "in order
to discover if slight increases in temperature of the pregnant
uterus, induced by microwaves, affect fetal survival," and to
learn if microwaves have a "deleterious effect on the fetus". 29
Corfman Answers - In a letter dated March 28, 1972, Dr.
Philip Corfman replies to Mr. Christopher Kolb, President of
the University of Maryland Right to Life Committee. According
to Dr Corfman. the (Brent) study is designed to gain know-
ledge "unrelated to abortion" such as the dangers, if any, of
microwave ovens . . . conceivably, then, this research would
contribute to assuring healthier pregnancies and avoidance of
hazards during pregnancy." 30
The CRB Director concludes that "improvements in abor-
tion techniques are within the purview of this Institute's man-
date to support research on questions of public health.
The November 1973 issue of Contraception carried an
article entitled "Ultrasound : It's Potential Use for the Termina-
tion of Pregnancy" by Melvin Sikov of Battelle, Pacific
Northwest Laboratories. 31
Under the subtitle. Effects of Ultrasound on the Conceptus,
Sikov notes that "other forms of radiant energy, such as micro-
waves, recently have been shown to produce embryonic
death" (12).
Footnote 12 is Brent, R.L. Franklin, J.B. and Wallace,
J.D., The interruption of pregnancy using microwaves. Tera-
tology 4:484, 1971.
Clearly, the primary purpose of the Brent contract was to
explore new techniques ultimately designed to kill the fetus or
embryo of a pregnant woman desiring an abortion.
Carl Djerassi, President of the Syntex Corporation, Palo
Alto, California in the Jan. 1972 issue of Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists noted that he was happy that two important federal
funding agencies (AID and CRB-NIH) seem to have found
ways to circumventing Sec. 1008 of the 1970 Family Planning
Act . . ." Louis Hellman denies such action. Our research
supports Prof . Djerassi's premise. If such federal funding under
the Tydings Bill is to be ended we will need prohibition legisla-
tion which is virtually air-tight in both intent and language.
KASION OF PRIVACY
The second major area of concern of the U.S. Coalition for
Life related to current federal family planning abuses centers
upon the dangers to civil and constitutional rights posed by
data banks and similar information gathering and monitoring
techniques used by HEW.
The omniscient, omnivorous memory of computers which
store vast information of all kinds on the everyday activities of
citizens, has in recent years become an increasing concern of
Congress and the public.
Daily, new provisions are being adapted at all levels of
government to curb undue encroachment on the privacy of
individuals.
Yet, despite this new awareness to the potential dangers o
data bank systems, there has been no challenge to the presence
of Big Brothers in the boudoir. Indeed there is little evidence
which might lead one to suspect that anyone even knows he is
there.
From a practical point of view, HEW population control-
family planning data banks fulfill the need to monitor,
coordinate, administer and evaluate current federal and state
programs. All agencies receiving federal funds are required by
HEW to submit data which includes a sexual history of each
client.
From a philosophical point of view, such data banks reflect
the desire of population technocrats to control and regulate
even the most intimate activities of the populace. Rough Beast
editor, Gary Potter explains: ". . . order in a Technocracy
requires a control so complete that even the most intimate
acts, and their consequences must be regulated. Already few
acts are performed entirely in privacy. The one that still is
generally the most intimate of all, the act of love, an act which
the planners of perfection must control, not only because
unlicensed offspring would disrupt the Fiscal Year's projected
availability of goods and services, but also, and perhaps more
importantly, because the passion which an unauthorized act of
any sort would imply is the very antithesis of the thing which
is the most essential of all to perfection, careful planning."
Enclosed is a sample of computer data forms. In addition to
familial and medical information, data on the sexual practices
of the client is required.
The Provisional Report Form for Family Planning Services
of the National Center for Health Statistics, PHS, Dept. of
HEW 32 , for example includes:
Coital Frequency Age at First Coitus
Date of Last Coitus Sexual Compatibility
I (Satisfactory I lUnsatisfactory
Partner's Attitude Towards Contraception
( ) Cooperative ( ) Uncooperative
( ) Doesn't Care ( ) Unaware of Usage
Other information on attached forms 33 - S 4 includes contra-
ceptive method of choice, nature of referral and counseling,
number of pregnancies, etc.
In general practice, family planning personnel and physicians
Do Not inform their patients or clients that such information
will be fed into a centralized data bank.
Such questionable practices are justified on the basis that
80
the client is given an identification nunwf assuring anony-
mity. Yet are not similar "precautions" used in other data
systems which have been attacked as unconstitutional'
In some cases identification numbers do not offer anony-
mity since the ID number is the client's social security number.
Tennessee employs such a system of identification in its
statewide data system for family planning.
"Patient identification. Both the patient's name and a
unique identification number are recorded on the data form.
In order to evaluate continuity of care, the patient retains
the same number in whatever counties or clinics she receives
service.. In Tennessee, the patient's number is her social
security number. When a new patient does not have a
social security number, the clinic staff is instructed to
apply for one and to give the patient a temporary number. " 35
Under the Tennessee system, "delinquent" clients who do
not respond to a computerized follow up visit are placed on a
home visitation list Wra scheduled visit by a community social
worker or public health nurse.
I draw the attention of this subcommittee also to the
enclosed national birth survey of the PHS, Health Services and
Mental Health Administration.
Note the patient's name is clearly identified. Note that the
survey requires a doctor to divulge his patient's contraceptive
practices.
Do these practices involve civil and constitutional violations?
Do these practices involve a breech of the patient-doctor
relationship? Are these practices a violation of privacy of
individual citizens? These are basic questions this subcommittee
must ask.
I ask therefore that this subcommittee include in this
hearing record a detailed explanation of the Federal Family
Planning Data System of HEW and legal opinions as to the
constitutionality of such practices by federally funding family
planning units.
ABUSE OF GOVERNMENT INFORMATION
There are a number of federal family planning practices which u
programs of population control particularly among welfare clientele.
alve the use of federal agency's mailing lists for questionable
The following history of an OEO CAP grant No. CG-4813
illustrates the need for legislation to prevent further abuses
using federal agency listings.
Beginning in May, 1971 the Office of Economic Oppor-
tunity as an "anti-poverty" project awarded over $100,000 in
family planning funds to Population Services, Inc., a Chapel
Hill. North Carolina agency, for the purpose of increasing use
of condoms among sexually active, young, unmarried low
income males in urban and rural settings.
The creature of Dr. Timothy Black of England and
Philip Harvey, formerly of CARE, Population Services, Inc.
was begun as a non-profit corporation in Jan. 1970.
In order to get tax-exempt status to qualify for funds for
research in birth control, the agency split in two -
Population Services Inc. - the non-profit research branch
and Population Planning Assoc. - a commercial retail
firm buying and selling birth control devices.
During the first year of OEO - Community Action
Program contract, 25.000 individuals between the ages of
13 and 20 were contacted.
The local OEO Community Action Agencies and commercial
sources supplied mailing lists.
The mailings were unsolicited.
A typical mailing included such questions as "Has one of
your friends made a girl pregnant recently?" or a similar question
on venereal disease. The letter, the context of which encourages
premarital sexual activity, reassures the reader tha( such
consequences are avoidable. Population Services promises that
the name of a local cooperating druggist or a condom stamp
coupon worth $1.00 from Condom Associates (Population
Planning Associates?) will be sent to those responding favorably
to the letter.
Of the 25,500 young men contacted, 2,260 responded
favorably. These were sent materials (condoms and drug store
locations) in unmarked envelopes. Eighty-six letters were
returned requesting no material be sent. In no case did
Population Services solicit parental consent.
The July 26. 1972 application, date beginning Aug. 1, 1972
and ending Jan. 31, 1974 of Population Services for an
additional $152,274 includes in its description plans to reach
"coaches and other supervisory personnel" in condom out
reach programs for young men.
I understand that the Population Services, Inc. program
has been terminated due to disappointing results of the pilot
project.
I am sure however that similar 'family planning' schemes
will be approved in the future.
This particular grant involving low-income young persons -
primarily blacks, and all below the age of 21 brings to the
forefront some very disturbing questions.
Could the unsolicited action funded by the OEO be held as
action contributing to the delinquency of minors?
Why do young, unmarried males need "family planning"
assistance?
Did the unsolicited action of minors as young as 13, violate
parental rights?
I ask that this subcommittee enter into the record, answers
to the above questions and legal opinion as to the possible
violations of parental authority incurred in the carrying out of
this grant.
81
ABUSE OF
HRALLY FUNDED FAMILY PLANNING MN CENTERS"
The following report on Planned Parenthood Teen Scene of
Chicago. Illinois combines a number of abuses of federal family
planning funds, some of which have already been pointed out
in earlier portions of my testimony.
Teen Scene is operated by Planned Parenthood of Chicago.
The program began in 1971 with an HEW funded grant
totalling $259,000 (FY 1961, $69,000. FY 1972 $190,000).
The mechanism of funding was the Illinois Family Planning
Coordinating Council, a tunneling agent for most of the Tydings
Act funds.
In a letter of Nov. 1, 1972 to the Honorable Richard S.
Schweiker, Carl S. Shultz, M.D.. then Director of the Office of
Population Affairs, outlines the basic programs of Teen
Scene. 37, 38
Dr. Shultz notes that the law in Illinois specifically allows
contraceptive information and services to be made available
to individuals aged 16 and over without parental consent.
According to the HEW official "Teen Scene" activities
include "pregnancy testing and contraceptive information".
Pregnant girls requesting further "counseling" after examina-
tion are referred to a "Teen Scene" social worker. Dr. Shultz
states however that Teen Scene does not give counseling on
abortion. Instead, the girl is referred to "CARES", the
Council on Abortion Referral and Evaluation Services, an
agency not funded by HEW Dr. Shultz states that there's no
followup by "Teen Scene" of patients referred to CARES.
According to Dr. Shultz the emphasis of "Teen Scene"
counseling is to encourage responsible teenage sexual behavior.
Dr. Shultz denies that any Tydings Act funds tunneled via the
Council are used for abortion related purposes.
The U.S. Coalition for Life does not agree with Dr. Shultz's
evaluation of Teen Scene activities. We believe that the
Abortion Prohibition Amendment of the Tydings Act has in
fact been violated in the case of "Teen Scene".
Let us look more carefully at CARES. Dr. Shultz's letter
attempts by implication, that there is no direct link between
"Teen Scene" and CARES.
Fact Number One — CARES, a five-state abortion referral
service, established in July 1971 is located at 185 N. Wabash
Ave.
"Teen Scene" is located at 185 N. Wabash Ave.
Planned Parenthood, Chicago is located at 185 N. Wabash
Ave.
CARES was established by Planned Parenthood, Chicago
(which administers "Teen Scene") in conjunction with the
Clergy Consultation Service on Problem Pregnancy. According
to P.P. Executive Secretary, Benjamin Lew the goal of CARES
is to keep the quality of abortions high and the costs low.
CARES arranges for a "package" deal sending most women
to N.Y.C.
In addition to CARES, Planned Parenthood, Chicago,
recipient of both HEW and AID funds, established itself in
1972 as an abortion co-ordination agent for the purpose of
arranging for N.Y. abortions for Chicago coeds.
Fact Number Two — In the Spring of 1972, an 18 year old
resident of Chicago made a pre-arranged call to Teen Scene to
"arrange for an abortion for his 15 year old girl-friend."
He was told that he must make his own plane reservations on a
flight which would be pin-pointei by Teen Scene and he must
bring in a signed notarized statement of responsibility by
anyone 21 years or older. He was then told that Teen Scene
would arrange for a limousine to meet the girl at the airport
in New York, take her directly to the clinic where an abortion
would be performed and she would then be transported to the
airport to return to Chicago the same day.
It should not be too difficult a task for this subcommittee
to substantiate Teen Scene's abortion package for minors by
questioning Teen Scene administrators and Staff personnel.
(Note: In 1971-1972 abortion was legal in Illinois to pre-
serve the life of the mother — hence the need for out-of-state
abortion referrals of the nature mentioned above).
Fact Number Three — "Teen Scene" seminars are open to
children as young as 13 years of age. Girls are charged $5 for
instruction, contraceptive devices and an examination. A
primary "educational method" is the "rap session". (We will
upon request, supply this subcommittee with a transcript of
the nature of P.P. "rap sessions" for young people).
Fact Number Four — According to a Teen Scene brochure,
objective No. 2 of the project is "To eliminate unwanted
pregnancies by making effective means of family planning, in-
cluding contraception and voluntary abortion, available to all."
"Teen Scene", Chicago is one of many Planned Parenthood
programs catering to minors.
Sadja Goldsmith, M.D. is Director of Teenage Services of
Planned Parenthood/World Population — San Francisco. Dr.
Goldsmith is well known for her abortion techniques and has
co-authored a number of articles on early abortion methods.
According to Dr. Goldsmith abortion counseling and volun-
tary abortion services for teenagers, with or without parental
consent, is a new area of need, and the provision of pregnancy
counseling, sensitive counseling, and referral for legal abortion
are essential parts of a comprehensive program. (From "A
Study of Teenage Contraceptors" by Goldsmith, Gabrielson,
Gabrielson, Potts and Sholtz.)
I repeat an earlier question posed to this subcommittee.
How does HEW continue to justify the continued funding under
the Tydings Act of Planned Parenthood World Population
affiliates which deal, both indirectly and directly with abortion
(including abortion of minors without parental consent) and
which in a broad sense of the term contribute to the delin-
quency of minors? I trust this subcommittee will not permit
such funding to continue without investigating these charges
and where necessary, subpoening necessary statements and
documents from these Planned Parenthood units funded under
the Tydings Act.
FERTILITY CONTROL EXPERIMENTS ON THE POOR
Under the 1970 Family Planning and Population Services
Act, extensive research on new techniques of fertility control
has been carried on.
Prostaglandins (Upjohn Co., major supplier to researchers),
Depo-Provera (an UpJohn trademark for the long-acting
sterilization drug) and
82
DES (Diethylstilbestrol) - manufactured l^knumber of drug
firms. As of Nov. 30, all have receiv^TFood and Drug
Administration approval.
Human experimentation of these new agents - all well
suited chemical warfare agents for population control, is being
carried out primarily on
(II the poor (in the U.S. and abroad)
(2) the young (at university-based medical centers)
and
(3) the retarded (family planning clinics and institutions
for the retarded)
The benefactors of the experiments are primarily
(1) pharmaceul^Acompanies
(2) public and pWate population control agencies such as
Planned Parenthood, HEW and AID
(3) university-based medical researchers and
Depo-Provera (Medroxyprogesterone Acetate) is a long-term
acting (3 month) injectable contraceptive which has been tested
on thousands of poor, primarily clinic patients in the U.S. and
abroad (Thailand, India, South Pacific).
The known side effects of this drug are permanent sterility,
irregular bleeding patterns, hemorrhaging requiring curettage,
and others.
The FDA approved the drug on Oct. 10, 1973. They cautioned that Depo-Provera be used only in certain women, and that pa-
tients give informed consent.
And who are these "certain women" referred to in Dr. Alexander M. Schmidt's (FDA) statement of release? They are women
who are willing to accept the possibility of permanent sterility and who
(1 ) refuses or is unable to accept the responsibility demanded by other contraceptive methods; or
(2) is incapable or unwilling to tolerate the side effects of conventional oral contraceptives; or
(3) is one in whom other methods of contraception have repeatedly failed, (emphasis added)
Using this definition - who then are these "certain women"
who "refuse" or are "unable" or "incapable" or "unwilling"'
Would these women be the wives of the medical researchers?
the daughters of HEW officials' the relatives of U.S. Congress-
men? Probably not.
These "certain women" are the poor, the young and the
retarded - the original "guinea pig" group who are notoriously
"lax" in limiting their numbers or regulating their sexual
activities in such a manner so as not to produce a child.
Are these "certain women" who are being immunized and
temporarily sterilized capable of giving "informed consent" in
the true sense of the word?
The research history of the other drugs mentioned earlier is
similar to that of Depo-Provera. Prostaglandin abortion
experiments have been widely carried out on clinic patients
including minors and at university based medical centers. DES,
mis-named "the morning after pill" was and is used widely at
teen birth control centers and university clinics.
I bring this matter to your attention because the Coalition
does not believe that the poor, the young, and the retarded
should be the object of exploitation by profit-seeking drug
firms and the population control establishment.
You as members of the Subcommittee on Public Health and
Environment have a special obligation in this matter to see
that legislation such as HR 11511 provides explicitly for the
protection of the most vulnerable and powerless groups
against those who consider the health of the state (over-
population) more important than those receiving a "public
health" service.
Drug companies such as Upjohn, who receive tax funds
should be prohibited from turning our ghettos and college
campuses and homes for the retarded into happy hunting
grounds for pharmaceutical profits and fertility control zealots.
FEDERALLY FUNDED POPULATION CONTROL RESEARCH
In 1971, the National Institute of Health, awarded a
five-year grant of $337,652 (total) to Dr Kingsley Davis of the
University of California, Berkeley.
The title of the grant (HD-04602) is "Goals and Conditions
of Population Control".
Dr. Davis, an outspoken advocate of abortion and popula
tion control, is best known for his suggestion that unwed
mothers be compulsorarily aborted.
I ask this subcommittee to enter into this record a detailed
explanation of the nature of Dr. Davis' grant, and the names of
those persons involved in awarding the grant and the reason for
approval.
This is but one of the hundreds of questionable grants and
contracts listed in the 1972 Inventory of Federal Population
Research. Of particular concern to the U.S. Coalition for Life
is the large number of grants listed under the Social and
behavioral Sciences directed at the poor in general and
minority groups in particular including blacks and indians.
HEW appears to be overly anxious to unlock the key to
family limitation "motivation" to save the poor "from the
consequences of their own reproductive behavior."
83
Concluding Remarks
FEDERAL FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAMS - A WEAPON OF POPULATION CONTROL
In September, 1973, Des Frost, Chairman of Prime Minister
Ian Smith's ruling Rhodesian Front Party, called for the crea-
tion of a ministry of birth control to curb the growing black
i population in Rhodesia.
"Trying to handle this problem with kid gloves is having a
| negative effect." he told the party's annual congress. "We need
a ministry dealing purely with the population explosion — a
! ministry with teeth than can dish out benefits to those who
conform and penalties to those who refuse to see the problems
i they create for future generations." Chairman Frost did not
elaborate on the penalties or benefits, (from the Florida Times
Urion 9/21/731.
That is Salisbury, of course. Dr. Louis Hellman and the
; Bureau of Love at HEW would not be so crude, at least, not
publicly.
It is not that Dr. Hellman and the population control
establishment would be against such programs in principle.
It's simply a matter of timing.
According to Dr. Hellman (the key figure in federal,
domestic, family planning programs) there is a question as to
whether or not volunteerism alone will be effective in limiting
population to acceptable limits since "almost all population
programs throughout the world are based on the concept that
there is a fundamental family right to choose the number of
their children . . ."
"The alternatives to voluntary contraception such as posi-
tive and negative incentives or outright governmental control
do not appear feasible or desirable at the present time."
(from "Family Planning Comes of Age" by Louis Hellman,
M.D.. Washington. D.C. 19711
To argue one way or the other today, is for all practical
purposes, a waste of time.
The use of the mass media combined with massive indoc-
trination of the young in our nation's secondary and elemen-
tary schools has rendered "positive and negative incentives or
outright governmental control" superfluous and such cliches as
"volunteerism" meaningless.
Talk of adding sterilants to the water supply or compulsory
abortion raises the ire of most citizens. Such tactics smack of
totalitarianism. They are crude — and unnecessary with
today's psychological weapon of persuasion.
'The tendency toward psychological collectivization is the
sine qua non of technical action . . . the problem is to get the
individuals consent artificially through depth psychology, since
he will not give it of his own free will. But the will to give
consent must appear to be spontaneous." (Ellul, The Techno-
logical Society 409, 1964).
The so-called "Population- education" funded under the
Tydings Act will insure a generation of young people who will
welcome governmental control of their reproductive lives. The
rabid anti-life doctrines in our schools today will make abor-
tion and euthanasia acceptable tomorrow. And the young will
find consolation in that if such acts be murder, as Scholastic
magazine suggests "it will be murder in context!"
Clearly, termination of federal funding the Tydings Act of
anti-life secular indoctrination, by this subcommittee, would
be a step in the right direction. We urge you to take such steps
immediately. The U.S. Coalition for Life is prepared to sub
stantiate all charges leveled against HEW in this testimony.
Your concern translated into legislation will not cure these
bureaucratic ills overnight, nor immediately halt the anti-life
programs so deeply entrenched in HEW.
What such action, however, will do, is provide the fiist
stepping stone toward an end of rule by the bureaucracy and
return government to its original mandate of service not
control — of protecting human life not destroying it - of
nurturing family life — not corrupting it.
The first step is the most difficult. The U.S. Coalition foi
Life is ready with documentation and support for any
Congressman and Senator willing to take that first step.
Documentation to foot-noted information is available to
Congressmen and Senators from the House Subcommittee on
Public Health and Environment.
Cost to Pro-Life groups is $25.00. Documentation may
be ordered directly from the USCL office. Allow 14 days
for delivery.
84
WCUC TestinUny on H.R. 11511 - if arch 15, 1974
Mr Chairman
Member* of the Subcommittee
WOMEN CONCERNED FOR THE UNBORN CHILD is an
uil, nonpartisan, non-sectarian organization of over
7.000 mothers, students and professional women from Pennsyl-
vania whose purpose is to speak for, and act in behalf of the
youngest and most defenseless member of the human family -
the unborn child.
We welcome this opportunity to enter testimony on HR
11511, the Health Revenue Sharing Bill now before this
subcommittee, with our specific remarks directed at Title 1 1 1 of
the Bill. The Family Planning and Population Research Act of
1973. HR 11511 is the companion bill to S1 708, the Family
Planning and Population Act of 1973. Both Bills are critical
of the Pro-Life Movement as jointly they:
1. Represent the basic funding legislative mechanism for
numerous anti-life agencies, specifically Planned Parent
hood World-Population and its affiliates, the number
one enemy of the unborn child, and
2. Represent an attempt to legitimize through legislative
action, anti-life policies and programs which have
ALREADY been put into effect by bureaucratic fiat of
the Department of Health, Education and Welfare,
specifically federally funded abortion and abortifacient
research and fertility control experiments, and CLINI-
CAL TESTING, using as human guinea pigs, the poor,
the retarded and other vulnerable elements of the
population, and
3. Represent a th-eat to the civil and constitutional rights
of all citizens, specifically, the poor and the powerless,
RIGHTS which include the right to marital privacy, the
right of informed consent, the right of the young to be
free of anti-life public indoctrination, which incorporates
values alien to Judaic-Christian heritage and the ultimate
right, the RIGHT TO LIFE itself.
If "Truth in Advertising" were the issue here, the Family
Planning and Population Research Act of 1973 would fail to
pass this Congress. By this we mean that legislators, (first this
committee, then a conference committee and finally the
House and Senate members) are being asked to pass judgment
on legislation which cloaks itself in such terms as "voluntary",
"population education", "family planning" and similar euphem-
isms which serve to disguise a reality which is so repugnant as
to be solidly rejected at its face value by a major segment of
Congress and the American public.
The primary purpose of this testimony is not so much to give answers, as it is to raise questions, questions concerning the role of
the Federal Government in POPULATION CONTROL. It may appear odd, at least initially, that the government should be so deep-
ly committed, both in philosophy and practice, to a policy which has NEVER been openly debated in the Halls of Congress.
Certainly specific aspects of Population Control TECHNI
QUES have arisen from time to time, issues such as abortion,
involuntary sterilization of the poor and retarded and fetal
experimentation. Congress has also discussed and debated
specific programs, such as the abortifacient research program
of the Agency for International Development and the Contra-
ceptive Research Branch of the National Institute of Health.
Yet, amidst this dialogue of various techniques and projects of
Population Control, Congress has yet to come to grips with the
critical issue — that is - Population Control itself and its
civil and constitutional implications as a matter of national
policy.
WOMEN CONCERNED FOR THE UNBORN CHILD, as
the name suggests, is committed to speaking out in defense of
unborn children and their inalienable right to life. This
committment, however, does not mean that we remain oblivious
to related issues, such as euthanasia and fertility control
experimentation. On the contrary, this committment allows
us to see the TOTAL anti-life movement so as to view abortion
and euthanasia and involuntary sterilization for what they are
- tools of Population Control. Likewise, because each mem-
ber of Congress is committed to defending the civil and consti-
tutional rights of our citizens, it is obligatory that we see the
Federal Government's so-called "Family Planning" policies and
programs for what they are - tools of Population control and
enemies of life and the liberty of the citizens of the United
States.
Let us look briefly at these seven questions related to the
issue of Federal Population Control programs —
First: Are federally funded "Family Planning" programs
envisioned as a method of bestowing upon citizens
a personal health benefit or as a weapon in Popula-
tion Control?
Second: Is the "voluntary participation" clause attached to
federally funded "Family Planning" programs
(including S1 708 and HR 11511) workable without
practical and meaningful guidelines built into such
legislation?
Third: Does the Federal Government violate its professed
NEUTRALITY by aggressively promoting birth
control, including contraception, sterilization and
abortion among the general citizenry as a desirable
practice or goal?
Fourth: Do "Family Planning" programs funded and pro-
moted by public authorities violate the right to
privacy of a relationship which Justice Douglas
called "intimate to the degree of being sacred"?
(Griswold vs: Connecticut, 381 U/S. 479.486, 1 965)
Fifth: Upon what meaningful criteria may federally
funded "Family Planning" programs be evaluated?
85
What types of "accessory^^ilicies and programs
are attached to federally funded "Family Planning"
programs and upon what criteria are they based?
Have the fundamental questions respecting the
nature of the human being, of human liberty, of
the role of the state, of the poor and of the provi-
dence of God been considered, prior to the
ador^Hi of population control as a matter of
national policy'
We are not referring here to the morality of birth control
as a private practice, but rather as a matter of public policy,
that is. a policy-which is actually promoted and funded by
FAMILY PLANNING OR POPULATION CONTROL
If asked whether "Family Planning" programs are for the
benefit of the individual participants as a personal health
measure or for the benefit of the state (i.e. a measure to deal
with the "Population Explosion"), most Congressmen would
probably opt for the former. In their eyes, these federally
funded programs are merely "making available", primarily to
the poor and the young, birth control services which they
voluntarily" seek out, and might otherwise not have access to
because of specific restrictions, financial or otherwise.
To examine whether such a view would find support in
legislative history, let us briefly examine the rationale and
conclusions formulated at the Gruening hearings. These public
hearings held in the mid 1960's are critical to the questions at
hand, since they formed the basis on which Congress was to
establish the Tydings Bill, the Family Planning and Population
Research Act of 1970. Clearly, from even a cursory review of
the Gruening hearings' volumes of testimony, the massive
intrusion of the Federal Government into the "Family Plan-
ning" arena was justified on the grounds of saving mankind
from itself, or the so called "Population Explosion". Thus,
while alluding to the proposition that a woman's health might
improve with fewer births and longer spacing birth patterns,
the principle thrust of the DESIGNERS or architects of the
federal programs was directed at improving the health of the
state by reducing population growth.
A truly voluntary health program which the individual could either accept or reject, a personalized program tailored to the unique
needs of the client, a program free from pressure and propaganda is NOT what the population controllers see as the principle ob-
jective of the Government Population Control Programs and Policies.
The truth of this assertion may be observed in a number of
ways. For example, current fertility control research is directed
at the perfect birth control agent (be it contra-conceptive or a
sterilant or an abortifacient) which can be administered to the
"masses" in the form of an inoculation or vaccination. The
"crisis" wrought by a plethora of people demands a massive,
not an individualized, program.
In practical application this means the "success" of fertility
control programs are measured by the number of IUD inser-
tions or number of pills popped or the number of sterilizations
performed. If a conflict arises between the two areas of con-
cern, for example, if a woman suffers severe anemia from
bleeding, due to an IUD, the prescription is for an iron tablet
rather than removal of the device, since the latter action might
result in a birth, which must be avoided at all costs, even to the
jeopardy of the health of the patient.
Again, in the case of abortion, there is sufficient documen-
tation that abortion, particularly repeated abortion, is harmful
to women, yet abortion is the KEY weapon in any Population
Control Program. Hence the continuing campaign for abortion
reform. (See attachments 1, 2 and 3).
This pattern is repeated again and again. We see it in the
use of clinic patients as experimental guinea pigs for pharma-
ceutical houses and Federal Abortion Research Programs.
(See attachment 4). We see it in the Food and Drug Administra-
tion approval of DES, not fit for cattle, but okayed for campus
co-eds. We see it in the use of Depo-Provera on the mentally
retarded, or those, as the FDA guidelines suggest, who are
either "unwilling or unable" to use the pill or other fertility
control agents.
If the purpose of this sub-committee on Public Health is to
propose and devise health legislation, then we recommend a
thorough study of the health hazards of the pill, the IUD
(an abortifacient agent) and such drugs as Depo-Provera and
DES, as well as Prostaglandins. The latter agent for second
trimester abortions has been linked directly to Sickle-Cell
Aneamia, yet, here in the Pittsburgh area at West Penn
Hospital, black clinic patients continue to be aborted, using
this still experimental technique. (See attachment No. 5).
Under S1708 and HR 11511 women, primarily clinic
patients, would continue to be the victims of fertility control
experiments, which will benefit the Population Control es-
tablishment and in which pharmaceutical firms have a multi-
million dollar international investment. Adequate protection
is an absolute necessity to prohibit such victimizing of the most
vulnerable segments of our population.
THE MYTH OF VOLUNTEERISM
The second to be posed to this committee is akin to the
first, and centers upon the issue of "voluntaryism", and whether
such legislative guarantees are meaningful without strong
built in guidelines. Here we are addressing ourselves also to the
86
question as to whether or not Federal Bi^pontrol Programs
should be clearly and without qualification separated from
welfare assistance.
"Coercion" is a term of a broad spectrum of meaning in
the law. In the law of contracts a finding of coercion, or
duress, does not depend upon objective tests of what act or
threat produces a state of fear, leading compulsively to given
acts . . age. sex, capacity, relation of the parties, attendant
circumstances must all be considered. Persons of a weak or
cowardly nature are the very ones who need protection.
Closely related is "undue influence".
•Influence, therefore, is considered "undue" giving rise to
rescission of contracts, where a relationship of confidence may
be deemed to exist between the parties, and one of the parties
is in a position of weakness in relation to the other, and where
there is, in fact, unfair persuasion . . ." (from Population
Control; Court and Constitutional Concerns. William Ball.
Cornell University Press 1967 pps 19-20.)
We believe that because of the nature of welfare to the poor,
who are at the mercy of the state for their basic existence.
welfare birth contro^pbgrams can be said to be coercive in
the broad sense of the term, i.e. represent undue influence on
such individuals. This holds true when a social worker
presumes to influence the poor by promoting birth control
practices or suggests that a welfare client relieve herself of an
"unwanted" pregnancy, including setting up an abortion for
the client.
That the State is ready to pass this stage and is preparing to
introduce coercive measures to limit the number of welfare
clients is not merely speculative. Bills have already been
introduced at the federal and state levels to sterilize welfare
mothers or to make Depo-Provera shots a condition for receiv-
ing further welfare assistance. (See attachment 6).
Given the seal of the Population Control establishment to
"manage" the reproductive habits of the poor, for this sub-
committee to further perpetuate the myth of voluntarism is
to be blind indeed to the reality of built-in coercion which
exists whenever welfare s directly linked to aggressive birth
limitation schemes.
POPULATION LIMITATION PROPAGANDA
While the poor make up the hard core of the "target group"
of federally funded "Family Planning" programs, they are by
no means the only class of citizens who are exposed to the
ongoing aggressive campaign of birth limitation.
The Federal Government has poured millions into behavioral
and motivational research, designed to discover various psycho-
logical techniques to "motivate" citizens to limit the number of
children in their families. "We must teach people to Want
fewer children" appears to be a specific goal. This becomes a
rather complicated public relations problem as this "want"
must appear to be a voluntary decision rather than a forced
reaction to a state prescribed edict, at which people might balk.
That federal "Family Planning" programs promote, not only
a service, but attempt to mold values and attitudes by use of
mass media brings us to the important question of the possible
breach of state "neutrality" in matters of morals. For this
sub-committee to view birth control as merely a health measure
is to deny the true nature of human sexuality which encom-
passes a person's total being.
It would be no exaggeration to state that the Planned Parent-
hood Credo is the official religion of the Department of HEW
and that Planned Parenthood World-Population has become an
official appendage of government. Civic Awareness of America
a Wisconsin based organization has taken this matter of state
support of a religion of secular humanism as espoused by
Planned Parenthood via HEW, to the courts. The case is
expected to reach the United States Supreme Court.
VIOLATION OF MARITAL PRIVACY
Do tax supported "Family Planning" programs constitute a
violation of the right to privacy? This question does not appear
to be one to which this sub-committee or any other legislative
body has addressed itself. The reason is obvious.
Government probing of one's sexual habits and attitudes,
traditionally related to marital privacy, has largely been con-
fined to the poor, the welfare clients, who are particularly
vulnerable to pressures of public authorities.
We would venture to say that if any of the members of
this subcommittee or their families were subjected to an
indepth interview by a government agency as to their sexual
practices and contraceptive methods, and that such information
(coded or uncoded) were to be entered in a federal data bank,
a Congressional investigation of such gross intrusion into
family life would have already been demanded.
It is naive to assume that "Family Planning" programs can
be efficiently managed without such intimate probing of
client's sexual history and practices and without such informa-
tion being accumulated for statistical purposes deemed neces-
sary by HEW.
THE ISSUE OF ACCOUNTABILITY
One of the areas of Congressional responsibility is the
evaluation of an ongoing tax supported program. Yet, has
there ever been a single instance of a public hearing by this
sub committee on Public Health and Environment to objective-
ly evaluate and scrutinize policies and programs funded under
the Tydings Bill or its successors?
87
Furthermore, should such an undertaking be made what would be the criteria by which such programs would be measured and
evaluated? The fact is, that no criteria exists, and that federally funded "Family Planning" programs are virtually standardless as:
a) no concrete definition of "Family Planning" exists
b) no concrete legal authorization necessary for government sponsored Population control programs exists
c) no definite or precise territorial jurisdiction of government units to promote Population Control exists
d) no pre-established qualifications or rules of conduct exist to govern the activities of those agents who are selected to carry out
programs of Population Control
Until Congress deems it necessary to establish such standards, federally funded "Family Planning" will continue to be an anti-life
boondoggle which consumes, not only dollars, but human life itself in the form of abortion and euthanasia, a topic this sub commit-
tee will soon be dealing with in another series of public hearings.
FEDERAL PROGRAMS - ARM OF THE SECULAR HUMANIST
We have stated that Government Birth Control Programs
promote more than a mere practice. They promote an ideology,
3 way of life, based on a secular humanist ethic.
Therefore, in attempting to promote the Sangente philoso-
phy, the state has been drawn deeper into other related areas
which are equally standardless. Such programs include:
1) contraceptive education of mino'rs and minors rights pro-
gram (abortion for example), with or without parental
knowledge or consent.
2) massive population control indoctrination at the elementary
and secondary school levels.
3) massive media campaigns designed to "motivate" as well
as mold public attitudes and values.
4} genetic and eugenic programs designed to improve the
quality of human stock, as well as limit numbers.
5) massive sterilization and abortion programs, staples of any
effective population control program.
6) massive medical experimentation on human guinea pigs
deemed necessary for improvement of effective "fertility
control" programs . . . etc . . . etc . . .
NEED FOR CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION
Lastly, and this may be viewed as a summary of all
preceeding remarks - at that point in time will Congress
accept its responsibility as a representative body to come to
grips with the essential questions posed by the adoption of
Population Control as both a domestic and foreign policy'
Certainly our testimony supports the proposition that
'opulation Control Programs involve basic fundamental ques-
tions relating to the human being and his relationship to God,
his family and the State.
CONCLUSION: We understand that the United States Coali-
tion for Life has called for a Congressional investigation of
HEW violations of the Tydings Bill. Women Concerned for the
Unborn Child would hope that such an inquiry into specific
questions would first come to grips with the FUNDAMENTAL
questions we have passed to this sub-committee today.
Until such action is taken, we ask that no additional
funding under S1708 or H1 1511 be approved pending a
Congressional inquiry convened for the above stated purpose.
Thank you,
Mary Winter, President
Women Concerned for the Unborn Child
Documentation available from:
WCUC
1 703 Coast Avenue
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15216
Telephone: (4121 531-9272
88
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89
[From the Medical Tribune, May 9, 1973]
Family-Planning Units Urged To Make Genetic Referrals
Houston, Tex. — A medical geneticist proposed here that, in view of the devel-
opment of effective techniques to diagnose and prevent genetic disease, family-
planning agencies should include in their programs information and referral
services for families found to have genetic problems.
Dr. R. Rodney Howell, Professor of Pediatrics and Genetics at the University
of Texas Medical School, told the annual meeting of the American Association
of Planned Parenthood Physicians that, with the increasing emphasis on pop-
ulation control and reduction of family size, there is growing interest in the
prevention of serious hereditary defects whenever possible.
INFORMATION SHOULD BE OFFERED
"Genetic counseling permits an increasing number of families to have healthy
children," he said. "Implicit in this is the idea that not only should the most
modern genetic techniques be developed, but information about the techniques
should be offered to persons who, while seeking advise and guidance in family-
planning matters, learn that there is a genetic problem in their family."
He noted that "not infrequently patients will seek voluntary sterilization,
unaware that new genetic techniques are available that might permit them to
have normal children of their own."
Dr. Howell is director of one of the 46 genetic counseling and treatment cen-
ters participating in a nationwide network of such units operated by the Na-
tional Genetics Foundation.
The Role of Planned Parenthood — World Population in Abortion
(By George Langmyhr, M.D.)
Planned Parenthood Federation of America is a voluntary health agency
dedicated to making birth control services available to all American women
and men. The pioneering efforts of Margaret Sanger led to the opening of the
first birth control clinic in the United States. Planned Parenthood Affiliates now
number 191 in some 40 states and the District of Columbia.
I propose to discuss the history of Planned Parenthood's involvement with
abortion, to discuss our present activities, both at a national and affiliate level
and, finally, to take a look into the future. First, however, I would like to ad-
dress myself to two points : the concept that many people have of Planned
Parenthood as a birth control agency which, as such, should not be involved in
abortion ; and secondly, Planned Parenthood's involvement in helping to achieve
reform or repeal of abortion law. Public opinion on the first point is a problem
that Planned Parenthood has faced at national and local levels for many years.
I think it is fair to say that most professionals and volunteers associated with
Planned Parenthood have accepted, for a long time, the necessity of abortion
as an integral part of any complete or total family planning program. The
dilemma of a woman who has a legitimate method failure, or any type of un-
wanted pregnancy, cannot be avoided by Planned Parenthood clinic personnel.
In 1969, Planned Parenthood-World Population passed a policy on abortion.
Further, the National Medical Committee has issued Standards for Pregnancy
Counseling Programs and Abortion Services.
Regarding the second point, as a nonprofit, tax-exempt agency, Planned Par-
enthood is specifically unable to lobby or overtly attempt to achieve legislative
reform. However, there are many dedicated volunteers and professionals from
Planned Parenthood Affiliates who have been effective in working with other
concerned citizens and reform groups. One example is the outspoken advocacy
of abortion law change by Dr. Alan Guttmacher. Another is the informal co-
operation of Planned Parenthood Affiliates in ad hoc abortion law repeal com-
mittees. Finally, Planned Parenthood helped prepare various legal briefs which
have been presented to the courts as a means of effecting change. One major
effort is currently underway to change the recent legal opinion in California
that a minor is not able to consent to an abortion. 1
1 See p. 1161.
90
PLANNED PAKENTHOOD'S EARLY ROLE IN COUNSELING AND REFERRAL
It goes without saying that Planned Parenthood Affiliates have long been in-
volved in programs of abortion information, counseling and referral. Before
the recent change in abortion laws, these activities were, necessarily unpubli-
cized. Thus, we generally do not know the results of these early counseling and
referral programs.
The advent of abortion reform movements in the 1960's corresponded with a
dramatic change in Planned Parenthood service programs. Instead of providing
only birth control services (and occasionally infertility diagnosis, premarital
and marital counseling), many other conception counseling services began to
be offered. In a programatic way, Planned Parenthood began to get more deeply
involved in abortion programs through its involvement in pregnancy detection
services. In many communities, Planned Parenthood patients complained that
it was virtually impossible to get a pregnancy test done easily and cheaply ;
this was verified by Affiliate personnel, upon checking these complaints. When
attempting to prod health departments or hospitals, they found many institu-
tions resistant to developing or implementing a pregnancy detection service.
Therefore, many affiliates assumed this responsibility, at least on a temporary
basis. When Planned Parenthood's efforts became known, affiliates were con-
fronted with an increasing number of women seeking pregnancy detection serv-
ices who also began to request other assistance if they were found to be preg-
nant. Thus, certain affiliates began to get more deeply involved in abortion in-
formation, counseling and referral.
By the mid 1960's, there were other groups working hard in these areas and
Planned Parenthood affiliates attempted to cooperate with many of them in-
cluding clergy counseling groups and various community service agencies. Our
affiliate in Massachusetts has developed an extremely capable abortion counsel-
ing program which assists many women.
Clearly, Planned Parenthood's involvement was shaped by the social forces
which began to effect meaningful change in abortion law.
Let me now turn to our current involvement, utilizing activities in three
states to demonstrate the different types of programs offered by affiliates.
CALIFORNIA
Since the reform of the abortion law, our affiliates in California have be-
come deeply involved in programs of counseling and referral. Without intruding
too much on Dr. Minkler's paper, I would like to refer specifically to the ac-
tivities of our affiliate in the San Francisco/ Alameda County area. I hope I
do not abrade anyone by saying that the Bay Area has generally been more
progressive in implementing abortion programs, although there has been a great
deal of activity in Los Angeles as well.
As part of the San Francisco effort, our affiliate there cooperated with hos-
pitals and private physicians to make abortion available for many or most
women who requested it. Since Planned Parenthood's services are largely geared
to the indigent or near indigent, assisting them to become properly informed of
their medical benefits and to secure referral and confirmed appointments became
one of our prime areas of responsibility. But, as many of your realize, there
are large numbers of women who, because of marginal income, face major diffi-
culties in paying the normal private practice and hospital fees, specifically,
many younger women who are recently employed, secretaries, clerks, various
paraprofessionals and, as a separate group, college students. Planned Parent-
hood affiliates across the country have received an increasing number of re-
quests for assistance from this category of younger women. Affiliates have no
right to deny them access to service on the theoretical grounds that they have
a somewhat adequate income.
For this reason. Planned Parenthood/Alameda/San Francisco secured a foun-
dation grant to develop the San Francisco Center for Legal Abortion which was
designed to serve applicants who are ineligible for, or who elect not to invoke.
BlediCal and at the same time simply cannot afford private care at the current
costs. The Abortion Tenter embodies the concept of a pregnancy diagnosis cen-
ter, counseling, preabortion physical examination, processing for therapeutic
abortion committee approval and. postabortion followup including contraceptive
advice. The Center will collect a total abortion fee from each patient and pro-
vide payment to cooperating physicians and hospitals. It plans to offer a full
91
range of services related to abortion which, hopefully, will enable patients to
be quickly referred to an obstetrician-gynecologist in one of the cooperating
hospitals. Followup care, in case of complications, will be arranged through
the central office. A telephone answering service at the Abortion Center will be
in effect. Every attempt will be made to maintain patient contact with the
operating physician.
COLORADO
I doubt if many are happy with the Colorado law. Planned Parenthood in
Denver has carefully analyzed its position in relation to present abortion ac-
tivities in that state. Approximately 40-60 requests and some 30-50 referrals
for abortion are handled by the affiliate every week. Ninety per cent of these
patients are referred out of state, some to New York, others to California and
elsewhere. There are cooperating physicians in the Denver area who have agreed
to take a small number of referrals. It is interesting to note that the patients
requesting abortions from Planned Parenthood are usually young, between 18
to 23 years of age. They are college students or newly employed in various jobs
such as secretarial clerkship work.
Unfortunately, under the Colorado law, most of these women have no valid
reason for an abortion. This has led to the referral I have mentioned. Planned
Parenthood of Colorado does not do abortion counseling per se. Instead, it has
cooperated closely with the clergy counseling group in putting into effect an
effective screening mechanism to assist women who need to be properly in-
formed. Women are assisted in obtaining pregnancy diagnosis quickly. If they
wish an abortion, referral is obtained with the assistance of Clergy Counseling.
If there are grounds for abortion under the Colorado law, they are referred
to a psychiatrist.
There is another important aspect about the decision made by Planned Par-
enthood in Colorado. Under the present situation, they felt it urgent to pro-
vide much more information about the availability of birth control and to make
services even more widely available to young women. Therefore, major pro-
grams on college campuses and elsewhere have attempted to prevent unwanted
pregnancy from occurring.
NEW YORK STATE
July 1, 1970 saw the beginning of semichaos in New York State as far as
abortion programs were concerned. Fortunately, near order has now been re-
stored. I will attempt to detail the specific types of activity by Planned Par-
enthood that, in part, may have helped to restore this order.
EFFORTS MADE HY THE NEW YORK CITY NATIONAL ORGANIZATION
Planned Parenthood Federation worked with its affiliates in New York State
to monitor the situation, assist with a portion of the referral requests, consider
the necessity for training programs for pregnancy counselors, and so forth. As
in California and Colorado, many women really did not understand the New
York law or know how to go about securing a safe abortion. Therefore, we set
up a telephone service which enabled many women calling from in or out of
state to obtain proper information and referral. We published an abortion
pamphlet. Incidentally, we intend to get much more involved in education. At
the same time, Planned Parenthood strove to monitor the developing situations
in other states so that women from California, for example, did not come to
New York (as some did) when the situation in her community might have
changed to allow her to have an abortion there. We began examining the needs
for properly training personnel of all kinds in abortion counseling and. referral.
While some excellent counseling is going on throughout the country, there are
relatively few training programs to develop competent counsellors.
Our affiliate in New York City should be congratulated for its major role
in making available a competent telephone information and referral service
through the Family Planning Information Service of New York City. This
service is a result of cooperation by a number of agencies, both public, private
and voluntary within New York City, who had agreed upon the need to provide
a telephone service for women who needed to know about birth control services.
July 1, 1970 saw the Family Planning Information Service also take on the
responsibility of providing abortion information and referral. A tremendous
increase in the number of telephone calls to the service resulted.
Planned Parenthood, furthermore, was instrumental in working with munici-
pal, proprietary and private hospitals in attempting to match up prospective
92
patients with physicians and institutions. Our role as patient advocate was well
demonstrated in our criticism of the slowness of certain municipal hospitals in
iblishing meaningful programs of abortion. Planned Parenthood of New York
urrently considering the development of an outpatient abortion facility
in order to provide prompt, safe, low-cost ($0-$150) outpatient abortions.
Our affiliate in Syracuse made the decision to perform abortions on its prem-
ises. You may know that Syracuse is a conservative, Catholic community. The
atiiliate began to plan its abortion facility when it became apparent that no
hospitals in the area were making provision for abortion services. Through
various surveys, it learned that a number of doctors were willing to accept
referrals for abortions that would either be performed in the physician's office
or in the hospital with which the physician was associated.
Planned Parenthood initially wanted to operate a telephone information and
counseling service. However, after considerable discussion and deliberation, it
was decided that an outpatient abortion facility should be developed within the
Planned Parenthood Center. This decision was based on the following factors :
The reluctance of certain hospitals to make known their plans for abortion
services ;
The real prospect that where services were available, the fees would be high ;
The further realization that services would tend to be offered in a way that
the patient would have to face a formidable screening procedure, and thus a
long waiting period.
Since July 1, 1970, approximately 12 pregnancies per week have been ter-
minated in the Syracuse Planned Parenthood facility. Twenty per cent of the
patients are on welfare; the fees have ranged from $0-250, with the average
payment being $150.
The administrative problems in actually putting together the service were,
to say the least, horrendous. However, the executive director, an innovative
woman, was able to overcome all obstacles in developing this service with the
help of an enlightened board and professional staff. It is the feeling of the affil-
iate that such a service will be offered for the foreseeable future — ie. one to two
years until it is clear that abortion is easily available to women in the Syracuse
area.
FUTURE PLANS
By discussing programs within three states. I have attempted to outline the
different approaches being taken by Planned Parenthood. Now, for a look into
the future.
Clearly, we must provide support for those groups who are attempting to
maintain present satisfactory laws such as in New York State, or those who
are attempting to repeal the law in other states. In states where abortion law
reform or repeal has not yet occurred, we will continue to cooperate with in-
stitutions and agencies in offering programs of abortion information, counsel-
ing and referral. In those states where abortion law has changed, we have var-
ious alternatives, ranging from maintaining a telephone information service to
offering direct services, such as in Syracuse.
Of highest priority, however, will be our continued focus on birth control
services. It would be unfortunate if the availability of abortion deemphasized
the necessity of making birth control available conveniently and cheaply to all
women and men. Certainly, the United States is a "contraceptive society."
Planned Parenthood hopes that this well-established trend will be reinforced
so that we will be an even more efficient contraceptive society in the next
decades.
We support the view that when an unwanted pregnancy has occurred, abor-
tion services should be available, with the decision essentially being made by
the patient and her doctor. We will continue to be part of the advocacy constitu-
ency so that fees can be scaled down to reasonable levels.
In summary. Planned Parenthood hopes that abortion will become even more
available and supports the efforts of others in seeking reform and repeal of
outdated abort ion laws. At the same time, we will work to provide more effec-
programs of public education, information and birth control services to
n the need for pregnancy termination.
Ms, Excel. Secondly, at the end of this hearing. I would request
that those Senators who have not been able to appear, if their aides
would come down to the table, I have a speciallv prepared packet for
of those individuals.
93
Beginning my testimony, I would like to open with a comment
with regard to a speech that was made by Dr. Louise Tyrer of the
Family Planning Division of the American College of OBGYN be-
fore the Association of Planned Parenthood Physicians at their 12th
annual meeting at Memphis, Tenn., on April 16, 1974. The very
impromptu talk was on the status of the various Human Life Amend-
ments to the Constitution of the United States.
According to Dr. Tyrer's assessment of the congressional scene,
she saw that there were two basic approaches. One was the basic
States rights approach which would return the power of lawmaking
in the area of abortion to the individual States. The second, which
would guarantee the full protection of the law to the unborn child
from the moment of fertilization.
The States rights approach, she states, and I believe quite correctly
so, is unacceptable to the majority of prolife people yet very at-
tractive to the legislators, that is, Federal legislators, because "it sort
of takes the onus off their backs from making any decisions."
The remainder of her talk stresses the necessity of stalling these
hearings by this subcommittee by having Planned Parenthood phy-
sicians flood the subcommittee with requests to testify. This, Dr.
Tyrer suggested, was politically expedient and politically necessary
for you, Mr. Chairman, in order to keep the amendments bottled up
in subcommittee until you have gone through the election process in
the fall.
Frankly, I have no desire to embarrass anyone on this issue at this
time. This is not because I do not feel that Dr. Tyrer was incorrect
in her judgment of the political realities of the Senate and House
committees dealing with the abortion issue, and it is not because I
disagree with her, or her assessment that stalling these committee
hearings by dragging them out month by month would be politically
expedient for you and for others who 'might prefer not to have a
rollcall vote on a Human Life Amendment before election time.
But, rather, because with very few exceptions, almost every Senator
and Representative in Congress would like nothing better than to
get rid of the abortion issue tomorrow, if not before, or at least
dump the matter back into the lap of the State legislatures.
Senator Bayh. Excuse me for interrupting.
Ms. Engel. That is perfectly fine.
Senator Bath. You said, "Although, Mr. Chairman, I have no de-
sire to embarrass you," I do not think your desire not to embarrass
me is relevant to what we are trying to do here. I appreciate your
sentiment, although it is not necessary.
Nor am I virgin as far as being embarrassed, nor do I anticipate
that I will never be embarrassed again. It is like Harry Truman
said, "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen," and I like
it in the kitchen. You say further, "not because I feel Dr. Tyrer was
incorrect in her judgment or her assessment that stalling the sub-
committee hearings by dragging them out month by month would be
politically expedient for you and others who might prefer not to have
a rollcall."
Do you feel what we are doing here is dragging things out and
following political expediency?
94
Ms. Engel. I would not care to judge your motives. However, I
would suggest that these hearings have been dragged out, holding 1
per month on a different topic; yes, I would concur in that opinion.
Senator Bath. All right. How many votes do you suppose we
could have for these amendment if we had had the vote in June?
Ms. Engel. Well, the problem of getting through the subcommittee
is yours and getting people motivated to support is our problem, in
which you, of course, would play a role.
Senator Bath. You see, I have not tried to answer that question,
because I am trying to solve the problem in my own mind.
It must be very comfortable, I imagine, to be so satisfied that you
have all the answers and know exactly what is right and wrong.
I find it more difficult in my own mind and heart to reach that con-
clusion. However, if you are in favor of an amendment and make,
what I would call, a rather critical assessment, if not of my motives,
than of the results of my actions, I think maybe you ought to, in the
quiet of the evening, add up the votes you would have had in June.
Now. please proceed.
Ms. Excel. Yes. I would like to comment on that statement.
I have been in the movement now for more than 10 years. I do not
believe I have all of the answers, but I believe by the time you get
through these hearings you will not have all of the answers either.
As you said, there comes a time when you will vote yes or no, and
that time in your estimation may be 2 years, but at that point of 2
years you might be able to say, if I only had another 2 years to think
about it, I might know more about it. And the chances are that is
true, but the point here is that each day that goes by, thousands of
unborn children are being killed and so we are extremely anxious to
have this issue — the hearings conducted in the manner which they
usually are, and I would suggest future hearings be held in groups
of 2 or 3 days rather than being strung out in such a manner. That
would be my only comment before I go on.
With regard to the matter of congressional responsibility, the ex-
cuses that I have heard, and I am sure most prolife people have
heard on the abortion issue, is they will say, this is not our affair.
Some Congressmen and Senators will say the massive slaughter of
hundreds of thousands of innocent unborn children is not a Federal
matter.
They will say, we are not responsible for the Supreme Court de-
cision of January 22, which is now the law of the land.
Well, my primary purpose in being here today, Mr. Chairman,
is to tell Senators like yourself in both counts, in terms of being
both in the House and the Senate, that abortion is a Federal matter,
that the massive slaughter of unborn children in this country is a
very proper matter of Federal concern.
And the reason that it is such a proper matter of Federal concern
a that this Congress is directly responsible for the almost inevitable
Supreme Court decision which stripped unborn children of their in-
alienable right to life.
Why does Congress have this responsibility?
Congress has this responsibility because over the last 10
has permitted an antilife philosophv and antilife programs
and policies in the area of population control and so-called family
95
planning to be matters of national policy, promoted and supported
by tax dollars. . .
It is the Federal Government— at all levels— executive, legislative,
and judicial branches— which has posed the greatest threat to unborn
children in recent years.
The executive branch because it has failed to correct the antilite
abuses primarily within the bureaucracies of HEW and AID and
has permitted key antilife leaders such as Dr. Louis Hellman of the
Office of Population Affairs and Dr. R. T. Ravenholt, Director of
Population Bureau for AID, to remain in office.
President Ford's selection of Nelson Rockefeller will undoubtedly
compound these abuses.
The legislative branch, they are responsible because Congress has
authorized legislation and appropriate funds year after year to
initiate, promote, and to sustain antilife programs in virtually every
conceivable Federal bureaucracy, including the following:
You have a whole list, as vou can see, in front of you, which I am
not going to go through the^ bother of labeling succinctly other than
to say that in the attachments which accompany the testimony we
do contain specific details on the extent to which each of the agen-
cies such as the Office of Education, Department of Defense, Public
Health Services, U.S. Information Agency, and so forth, have con-
tributed to the antilife mechanism at the Federal level, and if at the
end of my testimony, if you have any specific question on any of
these agencies, I would be happy to answer them there.
Then we get lastly to the judicial branch. The judicial branch,
whose highest Court by a 7-to-2 decision, legalized the killing of un-
born children up to and including the time of birth, a decision based
in part upon the very impeccable historical credentials of the Play-
boy Foundation as well as numerous antilife lower court decisions,
brought about through the tireless efforts of federally funded Legal
Service lawyers.
Senator Bath. Excuse me, madam, what is the Playboy Foun-
dation?
Ms. Excel. The Playboy Foundation is the foundation of Hugh
Hefner and is related directly to Playboy Magazine and the Playboy
empire.
Senator Bath. And how does it have impeccable historical creden-
tials? I have never heard of it. Which is not to mean it does not have
impeccable historical credentials. Would you edify us a little bit?
Maybe it is something I do not know. I am familiar with the maga-
zine, having onlv a passing familiarity with it. [General laughter.]
Ms. Engel. When the Supreme Court decision came out, Hugh
Hefner, in an article which appeared in Playboy, praised the fact
that the Supreme Court decision had based a portion of its section
with regard to the history of abortion law on a presentation which
was funded through the Playboy Foundation, and if you would like
a copy of that I do have the article on which the Supreme Court de-
cision, using the information provided by this historical background,
funded through the foundation.
Senator Bath. Well, now you are referring to an article that Mr.
Hefner wrote?
Ms. Engel. No, no.
96
Senator Bath. Did the Court in its judgment talk about the im-
able historic credentials of the Playboy Foundation?
Ma Engel. Hugh Hefner, through the Playboy Foundation, his
foundation, has done a number of research articles and so forth on
tin- abortion area. . . , , -
When the Supreme Court decision came out, one of the references
made in the Supreme Court decision was to a specific article made
by a specific author. That particular article is related to the Play-
boy Foundation in terms of funding.
\nd if I use the term "impeccable historical credentials it was
to get just the reaction I have gotten, meaning, what is the impec-
cable historical credentials?
I would love to ask that of the Supreme Court.
Senator Bath. What concerns me, is that we have a very serious
issue here.
Ms. Engel. That is correct.
Senator Bath. I am sure you think it is serious, but when you ap-
proach it from that particular point, I do not think it is making a
good case.
Ms. Engel. Mr. Senator. I do not think you are quite correct.
Senator Bath. I think Hugh Hefner has a right to say what he
wants to say.
Ms. Engel. He may have.
Senator Bath. But I do not think we should be told that the Su-
preme Court of the United States based their decision on the impec-
cable historical credentials of the Playboy Foundation. Everybody
utitled to their opinion, but as the chairman of this committee
1 am trying to sort out facts from fiction and it is very difficult. And
forgive me if I am a little harsh on you.
Ms. Engel. Not at all.
Senator Bath. You have a right to present your opinion, and that
is why you are here. Do not be deterred. I have a sinking suspicion
you are not going to be. [General laughter.]
Ms. Engel. Yes. As you said before, you know, if you don't like
the heat in the kitchen— well, I have been through a lot of heat in
the kitchen as a mother of five so I will stay and go over this.
Now, what T was trying to say here. Senator, is that when I saw
that the Supreme Court decision was based at least in part on his-
torical documentation supplied by the Playboy Foundation, I
thought that to be rather unorthodox and more so when I read the
information. T believe it was not historically correct.
So perhaps T should have put little quotes around my comment as
being a facetious one but the fact that the Supreme Court decision
did base some of its historical data and so forth on information
provided by the Playboy Foundation simply means that I think that
they could have had a better source, if they were looking for more
urate historical information.
Senator Bath. But in the footnotes, I should remember this, but
did the Court refer in the footnotes to the Playboy Foundation, or
doctor or a scientist who was studving the issue and some
of the funds for the study had been provided by the Playboy Foun-
dation ?
97
Ms. Engel. Well, on this, I think it would probably be best if I get
you a copy of the article, but basically
Senator Bath. I am more concerned about the Supreme Court de-
cision, and not what Hugh Hefner has to say, with all respect to
Mr. Hefner. .
Ms. Engel. All right. I am too. The article in the Supreme Court
decision was footnoted and it used the author's name and the article
from which it was drawn. It did not mention the Playboy Foun-
dation. In other words, in reading the decision, if you read it you
would not know of this author's association with the Playboy Foun-
dation.
Senator Bath. What was the author's name?
Ms. Engel. I have the information in this packet, if you would
like to — would you consider holding it a second and getting a drink
and I will pull it out for you ?
Senator Bayh. Why don't you go ahead and I will look for it while
you go ahead. I just want to find out who it is, and pay more care-
ful attention to what the credentials are.
Thank you.
Ms. Engel. All right. Very good.
Earlier in my testimony, I made reference not only to the Federal
antilife programs and policies but also to an antilife philosophy
which has in fact, in terms of family planning and population con-
trol, become the state religion and by this I mean it is a philosophy
which is supported by Federal taxes. It is a philosophy which is sup-
ported by Federal personnel. It is a philosophy which uses the offices
of the Federal Government and it is a philosophy which Federal
publications push.
I have below a selection of quotations. They were taken from two
books. One is called Women and the New Race and the other is called
The Pivot of Civilization. I have brought them along with me be-
cause they are seemingly difficult to get, unless one orders the entire
volumes. The quotes that I have, I think are quite alarming, par-
ticularly when you mentioned you were quite interested in the Nazi
philosophy in the background there.
If you read the article which Mildred Jefferson referred to, which
was the "Life Devoid of Value" which was a philosophical basis for
much of what happened in Nazi Germany, you will see a very great
similarity between the particular approach, the utilitarian approach
and the quotes which I have before me.
Chapter 5 of Women and the New Race is titled "The Wickedness
of Creating a Large Family." The quotes read :
The most serious evil of our time is that of encouraging the bringing into
the world of large families. The most immoral practice of the day is breeding
too many children * * *
Another quote:
Every jail, hospital for the insane, reformatory and institution for the feeble
minded cries out against the evils of too prolific breeding among wage-workers.
Another quote:
* * * The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant
members is to kill it.
98
* * * What shall be said of us (society) who permit outworn laws and cus-
toms to persist in piling up the appalling sum of public expense, misery and
spiritual degration.
In other chapter, entitled "When Should a Woman Avoid Having
Children*' from again, Women and the New Kace, the following
quote :
No more children should be born when the parents, though healthy them-
selves, find that their children are physically or mentally defective. No matter
how much they desire children, no man and woman have a right to bring into
the world those who are to suffer from mental or physical affliction. It con-
demns the child to a life of misery and places upon community the burden of
raring for it * * *
The last quote is taken from the Pivot of Civilization. It is chapter
4 entitled, "The Fertility of the Feeble-Minded."
* * * we realize that each feeble-minded person is a potential source of end-
less progeny of defective, we prefer a policy of immediate sterilization, of
making sure that parenthood is absolutely prohibited in the feeble-minded.
And in the last section, having to do with eugenics, the following
quote :
* * * Eugenics is chiefly valuable in its negative aspects * * * it shows us that
we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, un-
ceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at
all * * *
I think you would agree that these are basically vicious, racist
opinions which could never formulate the basis for a matter of
national policy. The reason I brought the books along is so if the
Senator would like to see that these are quotes which were taken
within the context, and they were not quotes which I believe as a
professional writer, distort the author's intent. Could these quotes
be offered as the basis for national policy? Yes, they can; in fact,
they have. Within the next 5 years the Federal Government will
spend more than $1 billion in taxes to promote these ideas. Monday
before last, August 12, the House voted — the bill was H.R. 14214,
title 2, $472.5 million, almost $0.5 billion, to promote such opinions
through private, quasi-governmental and governmental agencies.
You see, Mr. Chairman, these quotes were taken from the works
of Margaret Sanger, founder of the American Birth Control League,
which today we know as Planned Parenthood and World Population.
Today, some 50 years later, the Sangerite revolution is complete.
The Sangerite philosophy or way of life has formed the basis of
Federal policy in the area of population control and so-called family
planning a pleasant-sounding euphemism for birth control, including
contraception, sterilization, and abortion. The Sangerite programs
and policies have indeed become Federal programs and policies.
There lias been a very concerted effort to overhaul the public image
of the Sangerite movement between the years of 1920 to the mid-
I960's, and T think it is easy to see, if one gages by the Sangerite
attitude from these previous quotes, why there was a need to over-
haul the public image so as to tone down the original eugenic roots
hedonistic basis of sexual activity of this organization.
It appears, however, that the movement has come full circle fol-
lowing the January 22 Supreme Court decision on abortion.
In the attachments which your aide has just picked up you will
find documentation to support the following charges.
99
It is a matter of public record that Planned Parenthood and its
affiliates see abortion as a key to eliminating physically or mentally
defective unborn children. They see abortion as a tool to reduce wel-
fare rolls and most importantly they see abortion as a necessary and
efficient method of population control, population control defined as
a regulation of family size by Government.
Large families are an anathema, and I think that this whole atti-
tude here with regard to families is very well reflected in a brochure
which you have before you called So You Finally Had a Boy, which
characterizes parents of large families as being immoral and selfish
since their example may kill us all in a few generations.
That particular pamphlet, the green and white one, was circulated
by Planned Parenthood of Pittsburgh, and its emblem is on the
back. It stems from Planned Parenthood, Colorado.
Many of these Planned Parenthood agencies received between 80
to 90 percent of their funds from the Federal Government.
Catholic-baiting, an art form in which Margaret Sanger excelled,
continues today unabated, for the Catholic Church remains the sole
singular obstacle to the goals of the Sangerites and the Malthusians.
I have attached as the last attachment, Mr. Senator, a selection of
cartoons on population control. Two of those cartoons, for those of
you in the audience who do not have them before you, one is a picture
of the Pope with blindfolds on, covered with cobwebs, walking on
two tortoises.
The other is an article-cartoon which shows the Pope appearing
before a selection of wall-to-wall people, the quote being "I have
called you here today to warn you of the dangers of underpopu-
lation."
These two articles, there are more on the flip side, appeared in
publications of the International Planned Parenthood Federation,
which receives more than 50 percent of its annual budget directly
from the American Federal tax dollar.
How have we come to this rather sorry state of affairs? How is it
that in less than 10 years Congress and Federal bureaucrats who
once hesitated to even use the word birth control, much less imple-
ment and promote birth control, are financing today a multi-billion
dollar foreign and domestic antilife program which includes the de-
velopment of new abortion techniques.
It includes the massive promotion of abortization devices which
are today staples of Federal family planning programs. It includes
the promotion of red, white, and blue condoms to celebrate this coun-
try's upcoming Bicentennial Year in 1976.
Senator Bayh. Pardon me. How do they do that?
Ms. Exgel. Well, if you want details, the gentleman that you
would see would be Dr. Ravenholt from AID. It was his suggestion,
because the traditional condoms, not that I am very well acquainted
with them, but through my work I have seen them, are traditionally
gray and drab, and Dr. Ravenholt's feeling is that if we perhaps
come out with something like the South Sea colors or colors which
are more attractive, that they would be more easily
Senator Bayh. Yes. I get the message.
[General laughter.]
100
Senator Bath. Where does he say that? I mean do we have any-
thing public? I would like to talk to him about that.
Ms. Excel. Yes. I can easily give you that material.
lator Bath. I would sure like to see it. The material, that is.
A\\> can talk to Dr. Ravenholt about that.
Ms. Excel. Dr. Ravenholt, by the way, was the gentleman who
strung his IUD's on a Christmas tree one day outside of his hall and
1 have other comments about Ravenholt, but we will save that for
another hearing.
To go on. The storv of the rise of the Sangente antilife philosophy
to that of national 'policy is basically a complex and lengthy one.
However, it would have been said to have come from an idea to an
institution via eight plateaus, each somewhat overlapping a time
span of more than 50 years.
Sheet Xo. G. Mr. Chairman, of my testimony^ covers the eight
plauteaus. In reviewing this for you, I think it might be helpful if
you would perhaps mark down if you have not already, where this
chart comes from because it is not one of my own making.
The chart comes from the Population Reference Bureau, Wash-
ington. D.C., which is one of the very earliest of the population
control groups in the 1920's and 1930's, and so it is a plateau system
which has been worked out and which has been publicized through
an agency which is well known for its particular biases in the popu-
lation control field.
The first plateau is in 1920 to the 1940's. This is basically a few
individuals "crying in the wilderness." These early people, these were
the Sangerites, the Margaret Sangers, they were the Drysdales and
they wore the Gambles.
I do not know — Mr. Chairman, are you acquainted with the ad
which shows on television, it is a deodorant soap and you are en-
couraged to use it because of the crowded conditions in the schools?
Have you ever seen that? It is P-300. Are you acquainted with that
particular ad?
Senator Bath. Very frankly, there are a lot of things that you
are saying, which I am not acquainted with. But I will try to get
acquainted with them.
Ms. Exgel. OK. The reason I asked, is if you had trouble remem-
bering the Gamble name, they are very well known in the population
control field.
Senator Bath. What does that have to do with deodorant soap, if
T may say?
Ms. Engel. Well, thev say that because of more crowded con-
ditions children and adults should be better disinfected.
Senator Bath. Is that what it says in the ad?
Ms. Excel. Yes. And the ironic thing is. it shows a picture of a
schoolhouse and children are piling into it and it is bulging at the
us. when in truth, if you are anywhere acquainted with the recent
tistics you would know that the children are coming out of the
because of the lower birth rate.
tor Bath. T thought maybe there were other things that hap-
pened when you were in crowded elevators or schoolrooms that might
make one want to use nondeodorant soap. Now, maybe there is a
subtle hidden meaning here.
101
Ms. Engel. Yes. Gamble, I believe, well, I will get down to the
use of the mass media. Then the link might be a little more clear.
I felt it was a scare pitch. Gamble is the head of an organization
called the Pathfinder Fund, which is one of the leading population
control agencies receiving Federal funding.
So that is perhaps another name that you might want to add to
vour list.
The second plateau would go from 1940 to 1960. In this area we
have the stage in which small groups, working together informally,
and then small organizations, seek this initial capital, generally com-
ing from the foundations. And in this population control and family
planning field that I am talking about now, the groups included the
International Planned Parenthood Federation; the Population Refer-
ence Bureau, John Rockefeller III Population Council and the Ford
Foundation.
These were the early population control and family planning
interests
The third plateau, 1960 to 1968— this was the time in which the
mass media was urged to get into the population debate because there
is a certain degree of respectability one gets by having the topic dis-
cussed even if it is in a derogatory manner. This was a period in
which there was increased foundation interest and also this is the
development of the university-based centers during the 1960's. These
are presently federally funded.
I would be happy to provide you with the names of each univer-
sity-based center.
The fourth plateau, between 1965 and 1969, this is something which
will be of particular interest, I think, to you, Mr. Senator, this is the
period in which bills were introduced in Congress and this activity
was carried on by such individuals as the late Senator Gruening and
outside of Congress by individuals like William Draper. General
Draper was recently appointed and is, I believe, at the time in Bu-
charest, along with the Pro Life delegation representing the Pro Life
views, but he was one of the official U.S. delegates to the World
Population Conference now going on.
The fifth plateau is the mid-1960's. Now we are starting to get up
to date. There has always been opposition to population control from
the Catholic Church, but it was about this time that the opposition
began to, I would say for want of a better term, began to take shape,
organized against the population control agencies.
The sixth plateau is 1970. This is the stage at which, in order to
get across, in order to promote your cause — in this case, population
control and family planning — it was necessary for the appointment
of one or more high level advisory commissions of distinguished
citizens to make policy recommendations and win public support
for legislation. I think the Rockefeller Commission on Population
Growth and American Future was one of these commissions and I
think that was its particular purpose.
The seventh plateau, again in 1970, additional Congressional hear-
ings culminating in legislation, usually of moderate scope and fund-
ing. The key bills here were the Tydiiigs bill, the 1970 Family Plan-
ning bill and the Environmental Education Act, which was a very
key bill for those groups, for example ZPG.
102
The last plateau unfortunately has been reached by the Sangerites.
This was reached very recently, I would say the early 1970s. This
included several things. It included the increased acceptance of pop-
ulation control and birth control legislation. It was reflected in the
increase of the movement's structural and financial stability through
increased tax subsidies— that is, my tax dollar and your tax dollar-
through its incorporation into the institutions and mores of society.
This action is continuing at many levels, including the indoctri-
nation of young children in the elementary and secondary schools,
the mass media, the university teaching centers, technological serv-
ices provided by researchers, pharmaceutical industries, government
agencies at all levels, and professional groups, such as medical so-
cieties and foundations.
As I said, the Supreme Court decision was an inevitable one. All
of the cliches of that decision, terms like "unwanted children," terms
like "a woman's right to control her own body," terms referring to
the "population explosion," all stem basically from this same San-
gerite ethic. The decision represented an accumulation of more than
a half century of dedication and tireless effort by the Sangerites and
by the Malthusians to convince the American public of the right-
eousness of their cause, but the most important thing here, and what
I would stress most importantly, is we are not talking about private
morality, we are talking here about public policy.
This final achievement is portrayed quite candidly in a book which
I brought. The cover is quite interesting. It is a book by Lawrence
Lader, whom, again, was another gentleman on whom the Supreme
Court decision based many of its footnotes. It is called We Are
Breeding Ourselves to Death, and the front cover is a bunch of rab-
bits looking at a large family and saying, Their breeding rate is
incredible.
The section has to do with the role of Federal agencies and it has
to do with the person of former New York Senator Kenneth Keat-
ing, who was at the time the newly-appointed National Director of
the Population Crisis Committee, and it tells about how he has eaten
in the Senate dining room and I will read the statement which I
think is kind of interesting:
He ate in the private Senate dining room where he would spread the gospel
of family planning among all of their friends, particularly among the Repub-
lican leadership. As one of them recalled, "We may have kidded Ken at first,
telling him that ho should go and talk to so and so whose wife had just had
another baby, but his persuasiveness paid off and he was able to give respecta-
bility to these discussions on population."
What has all of this got to do with this subcommittee hearing on
the Human Life amendment? Simply this: For more than a year
now the Hogan-Helms amendment and other similar amendments
have been buried in the House where Representative Don Edwards
has refused to hold hearings, and in the Senate they have not been
buried. However, hearings, in my judgment, have been dragged out
month after month, possibly to get Senators and Representatives
through the November watershed without a vote on the Human Life
amendment.
T truly feel that, obviously, there is no sense of urgency about the
matter. With the exception of a handful of dedicated men this Con-
103
gress does not appear to be the least concerned that its inaction will
result in the death of hundreds of thousands of unborn children. The
fact that millions of Federal tax dollars are used to promote a
myriad of anti-life schemes, from direct abortion payments through
medicaid and aid to dependent children, to research development and
the promoting of new abortion techniques, to the indoctrination of
children up to an anti-life ethic, all this appears to raise no par-
ticular concern at family-planning authorization and appropriation
hearings.
Equally obvious is the fact that under these conditions we are
going to have a very difficult time getting a Human Life amendment
passed by both Houses of Congress and on its way to the States for
ratification.
My purpose here today is to point out the current commitment
of the Federal Government, including this Congress, to the anti-life
establishment and to show, quite briefly, how such a commitment was
obtained and the price that we are currently paying.
Mr. Chairman, it is my feeling and that of the United States
Coalition for Life that this Congress owes, it owes its vigorous sup-
port for a Human Life amendment which would protect human life
from conception, that is to say from fertilization until natural death,
to the American people. The coalition would agree that the Hogan-
Helms amendment or the newer Roncallo amendment would provide
such protection.
Apart from the merit of these amendments themselves, we feel
that Congress should recognize the fact that through its indifference,
through its ignorance, and through its inability to withstand the
pressures of the anti-life movement, It must bear its share of guilt
for the 1972 abortion decision and share its responsibility in seeing
that a human life amendment is passed this year to protect the un-
born child.
Your responsibility, Mr. Chairman, in this matter I believe is very
plain. As for our part, I believe that the coalition and the pro-life
movement in the United States will continue to fight at all levels,
will fight in the halls of Congress and will even fight in the Senate
dining rooms to educate and to promote an ideal which we believe,
Mr. Chairman, is as revolutionary in our day as the Sangerite ethic
was 50 years ago. That ideal is based on the sancity and innate good-
ness of all human life.
Thank you.
Senator Bayh. Thank you, Ms. Engel.
I appreciate your taking the time to be here. We have tried to
Ms. Engel. Mr. Chairman?
Senator Bath. Pardon me?
Ms. Excel. I was going to say before I go, I did want to offer the
Coalition's research services in the same way that Mr. VanDerhoef
offered his services. We are also available, there must be many ques-
tions that you have now or you will have in the future on the extent
to which the Federal Government is committeed in the antilife area,
and our research services are at your service.
Senator Bayh. Well, we have tried to conduct these hearings in
such a manner that those significant groups that represented large
numbers of concerned citizens on both sides would be heard.
104
How many people share all of the views that you expressed here?
How large is the U.S. Coalition for Life? Do you have State chap-
1 am just wondering how many people there are.
Ms. Excel. I am very glad you asked the question. It gives me an
opportunity to say a little bit more about Coalition. The U.S. Coali-
tion for Life is as I said before, is an international and nationally
based research agency. We have a distinguished international board
which includes as I mentioned before men like Sir William Liley,
Dr. Billings of Australia. The Board is selected for its expertise in
a wide variety of areas, from fetology to economic development, to
population to natural family planning and so forth. Our agency
operates through this advisory system.
Senator Bath. Could you submit us a list of who the Board is?
How many members do you have?
Ms. Engel, Yes. We have 33 international and national advisors,
and one of our national advisors is Senator Jesse Helms. We have
also — excuse me, Professor E. Rice. Professor Rice is the author of
the Roncallo amendment. He is also on our legal advisory board.
Now, the way we work is this. Our agency's function is primarily
research. We have a research staff. We service prolife groups in this
United States and abroad. We service approximately 1,200 groups.
Some of the groups are small. Some of the groups are very large,
consisting of 60,000 members and so forth. We are not a membership
group, but I think the feelings that are reflected here today are a
reflection of the prolife attitudes because being prolife is more than
being antiabortion. Being prolife is rejoicing in new life, in wel-
coming new life, in creating a home where new life is always wel-
comed when it sometimes is not quite planned.
[The material referred to follows :]
U.S. Coalition fob Life,
Export, Pa., September 26, 1974.
(By Randy Engel)
For the Record — Complete list of national and international board members.
Number of subscribers : 1,200 groups in the United States and abroad in
approx. 17 countries. Groups range in size from 12 members to 60,000 members
to national groups such at the New Zealand Society for Unborn Children.
Government subscribers include government agencies incl. the Agency for
International Development and the Ohio Department of Health and similar
agencies.
The Coalition recently sent a 12 member team to the Bucharest World Con-
ference composed of 6 Americans and 6 members from New Zealand, England,
Canada, South America, Haiti and Japan.
International Advisory Board Forms Nucleus of World Wide Pro-Life
Movement
The formation of an International and National Advisory Board to the U.S.
Coalition for Life, of world reknown specialists in a broad range of pro-life
Interests was announced today by Randy Engel, the Executive Director of the
Pennsylvania-based agency, as the first step toward developing an International
Coalition for Life.
Heading the International Board are pro-life leaders from Europe, Asia,
Africa. Central and South America, Canada and Australia, including Sir Wil-
liam Liley, the Father of Fetology, from New Zealand; economics and agricul-
tural expert. Dr. Colin Clark of Australia; Dr. Antonio de Soroa y Pineda, of
Madrid, pro-life author and physician for more than 25 years; Dr. E. Tremblay,
retary General of the French Pro-Life Movement Laissez Les Vivre, Paris;
105
Dr. Siegfried Ernst of West Germany, one of Europe's foremost authorities on
human sexuality, married love and pro-life issues, and Phyllis Bowman, Secre-
tary of the English Pro-Life Movement, Society for the Protection of Unborn
Children, based in London.
Also, Dr. John Billings of Australia, pioneer in natural family planning;
Demographer, Anthony Zimmerman of Japan ; International journalist Victor
J. F. Kulanday of New Delhi ; Rev. Pedro Richards of Uruguay, founder of the
Christian Family Movement in Latin America, and British scholar and critic,
Christopher Derrick. Other Advisory Members include Rev. Michel Welters of
Haiti ; John Harrington of Canada ; Jose Lucio de Araupo Correa of Brazil ;
Nora Leach of Ireland ; Right Reverend John Njenga of Kenya ; John Bergin,
M.D. of New Zealand; Rev. Joseph Fidelis of Karhataka India; Rev. Rufus
Benedict of Ceylon and Hamish Fraser of Scotland.
Specialists from the United States serving on the USCL Advisory Board in-
clude Constitutional lawyer Charles E. Rice of Notre Dame; Dr. Paul Marx
author of The Death Peddlers — War on the Unborn of St. John's University,
Collegeville, Minnesota; United States Senator from North Carolina, Jesse
Helms; Herbert Ratner, M.D., editor of Child and Family of Oak Park, Illi-
nois ; Reporter and critic George Gent of New York ; Frances Freeh author and
lecturer on population; and Robert Mendelsohn, M.D. of the Department of
Preventitive Medicine, University of Chicago College of Medicine and Dr.
Nathan Wright, Jr. writer, sociologist and advocate of strong Black support
for the Pro-Life Movement. USCL-NGO Representatives to the United Nations
are Lillian Koegler of White Plains and Bill Devlin of Life Lobby, Inc., L.I.,
N.Y.
Also George Barmann of MAP, Inc., Dayton, Ohio ; K.D. Whitehead, author
and lecturer of New York; Public Relations Consultant John V. Hinkel of
Washington, D.C. ; economist-demographer Albert Kapusinski of Caldwell Col-
lege, N.J. ; William and Connaught Marshner of D.C. ; attorney Paul Haring
of Washington, D.C. ; Obstetrician-Gynecologist William Lynch of Brookline,
Mass. ; Daniel and Constance Torisky, national leaders in the field of mental
retardation from Monroeville, Pennsylvania ; Onalee McGraw of the National
Coalition for Children, Chevy Chase, Maryland ; James Ford, M.D. of Lynwood,
California ; pro-life attorney and writer, Robert L. Mauro of Long Branch, N.J.
and James J. McGuire, public relations consultant of Harrisburg.
The immediate objective of the International and National Advisory Boards
according to USCL Director, Randy Engel, is to improve communications in
the U.S. and abroad with specialists in areas of pro-life interest and share com-
mon problems and solutions of the Pro-Life Movement. Many of the advisory
members are expected to attend the World Population Conference in Bucharest,
Rumania this coming August, she said.
The long term objective, however, Mrs. Engel concluded, is to lay the founda-
tion for an International Pro-Life Coalition. The U.S. Coalition for Life is
expected to serve as a temporary headquarters for information and research
materials for Pro-Life groups around the world until permanent headquarters
are established, probably in England, she said.
"In the meantime we can help share our common burdens and our successes
against the Anti-Life Establishment manifested by such agencies as the Inter-
national Planned Parenthood Federation and the Humanist Society," she said.
Senator Bayh. I appreciate your being here. I appreciate your
frank criticism of the Chairman and his conduct of the hearings,
although I do not come to the same conclusions you do. It is im-
portant that we protect the rights of others to differ.
You might go back and look at the way some other hearings are
conducted. I do not know whether you have been here or not
Ms. Exgel. Yes, I have.
Senator Bath. You know that a lot of these hearings we start at
10 o'clock and we are still going at 6 o'clock. I do not think there
are very many Senators that have what amount to 4 days of hearings
in 1 day to pursue the solutions, but I do not offer that as an apology.
I do not think that is necessary.
106
T would like to ask one or two questions to define your thinking
1 L6 IV.
Y"ou mentioned the multicolored packets of condoms that have
sed. Do you believe there is a place for using any of these
in any color? Is that the same as abortion?
.Ms! Engel. Well, you noticed earlier in my statement I tried to
state what my statement was about. My statement is regarding public
policy on these basic issues.
Senator Bath. Well, we are having a hearing to try to determine
whether for the 28th time, 27th time we are going to amend the
( '(institution.
Ms. Excel. That is correct.
Senator Bath. And I must say very frankly, if you will permit
me to be equally critical of you as you have been to me, you have
brought in a lot of thoughts and philosophies, which you have every
right to share, but in my judgment have absolutely nothing to do
with abortion. Since you have been very critical of some groups and
some individuals. I wonder whether you feel that any effort to try
to prevent conception is the same as abortion. The use of a condom
is one example that you brought out.
Xow, is that the same as abortion? Is that something that we
should frown upon, that we should not use, that we should have a
national policy against?
Ms. Exgel. You notice that the context in which I used the con-
dom, it was not that the condoms existed — I have no qualms about
an enterprising condom field who feels that by making a product
more attractive they are going to sell more.
Senator Bath. Take the color out of it. I am talking about — we
are talking about policy. Is it a bad policy? Does a family that uses
this kind of thing, is that the same as abortion?
Ms. Exgel. Mr. Chairman, we are talking about Federal policies
with regard to abortion. Xow, the point of my testimony
Senator Bath. That is precisely what I am saying. We are talking
about that, and I wanted to know whether the use of a condom or a
policy of using a condom, is the same?
Ms. Excel. The point is, I feel and our agency feels that we are
;it this present level. In other words, we are at the level where the
Federal Government is intimately involved in abortion, both funding
abortion, the development of abortion research.
Xow, how did one get from a situation whereby as I said before,
l'i years ago abortion was not heard in the halls of Congress, rarely
was sterilization, sometimes family planning was. How does one get
in ID years from this position of almost a nonentity to the position
where the Federal Government has permitted Planned Parenthood,
an agent of abortion, to become a Federal Agency.
tor Bath. Excuse me, Ms. Engel. There are other people that
are waiting to testify.
Ms. Engel. T understand that.
Senator Bath. I know all of these things that you have said. I am
trying to get a little personal insight to what you really believe. I
wonder if yon believe personally that the use of this type of contra-
ception device is the same as abortion?
107
Ms. Engel. My personal views on family planning is that in terms
of preconceptive situations, an individual has a right to use contra-
ceptives or to avail themselves of natural methods. That is not what
I am discussing.
Senator Bayh. Well, that is what I asked. I know what you have
been discussing. You have had quite a bit of time to discuss it and
you have done it very well. I just wanted to get the answer to that
question.
" Ms. Engel. All right, but you see, the point that this has brought
up is someone will say, well — all right, let me rephrase that question
and it might help, I think it might help you, it might help the mem-
bers of the audience, in saying that our agency has no qualms with
contraceptives being available, and we would want no restrictions on
this except those required to protect minors, but what we are talking
about is the role of the Federal Government, whether it is promoting
abortion or whether it is promoting other means of fertility control
because the basis of our research and so forth has shown that the
reason why the Supreme Court decision came to its particular de-
cision was based to a great part on the fact that the Federal Govern-
ment had made abortion respectable, and it seems to me that until
Congressmen could accept in their own minds their part in per-
mitting the state of affairs to come about, that they would reallv feel
no responsibility in coming to grips with the human life amendment.
Senator Bath. Thank you very much.
Ms. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to Pat Goltz for letting me take her place.
Senator Bayh. Mr. Warren Shaller, the president and executive
director of American Citizens Concerned for Life.
Ms. Engel. Excuse me. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman. Pat Goltz per-
mitted me to go ahead, and I believe she was next.
Senator Bayh. I thought she changed places.
Ms. Engel. I believe she has an earlier flight, but I do not believe
Eeverend Shaller does.
Senator Bayh. How about Mr. Shaller. Does he have an earlier
flight?
Mr. Shaller. I have one about 4 o'clock this afternoon.
Senator Bayh. All right. Let us hope we will be pretty close to
finishing by then, because this is only being included as one meeting
by Ms. Engel's definition.
All right, let us have Pat Goltz. Is that all right?
Mr. Shaller. That is fine with me.
STATEMENT OF MS. PAT GOLTZ, FEMINISTS FOR LIFE
Ms. Goltz. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am Pat
Goltz, the international president of Feminists for Life, Inc. We
have members in 40 States, Canada, Britain, and Mexico. We have
an international information network, and I come before you today
to share with you some of the information we have gathered on the
questions of abortion.
At this time I would like to request my full testimony and attach-
ments be entered into the record.
Senator Bayh. We will be glad to do that.
108
Ms. Goltz. I want to be a little bit detailed about this. In the issue
of Child and Family, I would like to have you enter the article on
Nazi medicine and the one immediately following on the Ohio su-
preme court decision on abortion. The "Uncertified Human," if I
could. I would like to have the article on Michael Lichfield entered,
and on the ovulation method, I would like to have just the side with
the ovulation method on it, not the description of how to select the
sex of your child to be entered.
Senator Bayh. All right.
May 1 ask you, does the statement which you put in the record or
what you are going to tell us here describe what Feminists for Life
is? How does one describe herself as a Feminist for Life?
Ms. Goltz. Yes, I am going to do that.
Senator Bath. Good.
Ms. Goltz. I am going to actually excerpt my testimony because
of its length.
Senator Bath. That is fine. Thank you.
Ms. Goltz. We are for the legal and social equality of women and
men. We are here in support of the human life amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, which would protect human life
from conception until natural death.
Our primary reason is a feminist one. The only consistent philos-
ophy a feminist can have about other instances of human life is one
of granting dignity to all of them. We are demanding an end to class
stereotyping for women; we cannot and dare not introduce a new
class stereotype based on age, mental and physical condition, or de-
gree of unwantodness. We who were once defined as less than human
cannot, in claiming our rights, deny rights to others based on a sub-
jective judgment that they are less than human.
Our Government and our society exists to protect the rights of
each individual, and the most basic right is that of life itself.
Abortion has been presented as the solution to the problems faced
by women with untimely pregnancies. The vast majority of these
problems can be put into one category: discrimination. We are uni-
laterally opposed to discrimination based on either sex or maternal
-tat us. We reserve the right to be treated as equals and to be mothers
at the same time.
Abortion is a nonsolution. Each time a woman resorts to abortion,
she entrenches discrimination. She allows some part of the male
power structure to force her into a destructive act, in order to be
t rented with the dignity which is inherent in her.
.Many women who promote abortion do not do so out of zeal. They
are .1 riven to it. They have allowed their bodies to be raped by the
abortionists knife and like the victim of sexual assault it is a trau-
matic experieu«(>. Tt interrupts physical, hormonal, and physical life
streams. It is no wonder that in every poll, more men favor abortion
than women. Tt is no wonder that women who have been subjected
the longest to the male education establishment are most likely to
support abortion.
Women are in tune with the earth, the ecology. We do not destroy;
we create. Women recognize that human personhood begins bio-
logically at conception. We insist on the right to exist in our full
3exuahty which includes the reproductive function as an intimate
109
part of our psyche. We do not have to sacrifice our sexuality in order
to be equal. We will possess our full sexuality and we will be equal.
We insist that society provide for us and our children, all of them,
not just the ones the men want,
One technique which antilife people use, of which you should be
aware in order to watch for it, is the hard-case technique.
In this technique, the most difficult case is chosen for presentation
to the public, no matter how infrequently it occurs, and that case is
used as justification for full permissiveness in the abortion laws or
euthanasia practices. The hard case for the abortion question is a
case of rape. The hard case for the euthanasia question is the person
suffering from painful terminal cancer who is being kept alive by
heroic methods employed by an allegedly sadistic doctor.
We will comment on the rape-incest case.
Senator Bayh. How about the euthanasia case ? The sadistic doctor
which is keeping that patient alive.
Ms. Goltz. This is the way the case is presented by the people.
Senator Bayh. Is that euthanasia or is euthanasia a positive effort
to stop it?
Ms. Goltz. This is a hard case which is cited as a justification
for positive euthanasia. In other words, this is a situation that
euthanasia is supposed to correct. Just the same as, you know, we are
not here to recommend rape, and rape is the hard case for the abor-
tion question.
Incest is against the law primarily because children of incestuous
unions are more subject to genetic deformity than average. As such,
incest belongs with fetal deformity, not rape, and should be treated
as such.
Rape is the only case in which a women does not willingly consent
to intercourse. The solution to the rape problem is not abortion, but
the creation of a society in which rape is unknown.
The immediate solution is to teach women to report their rapes
immediately so that pregnancy can be prevented. Failure to do so
is implied consent to provide life support to the unborn child who
may result, The immediate solution also consists of forcing changes
in attitude toward raped women so that they are not treated as com-
mon criminals if they report their rapes.
In rape with pregnancy resulting there are actually two victims:
the mother and her baby. It is not just, to kill one of the victims for
the father's crime.
A comment must also be made about the term "compulsory preg-
nancy" which the other side uses. It is an emotion-laden term, and its
purpose is emotional. Its result is to take the discussion out of the
realm of the rational. In actual fact, even accidental pregnancies
cannot be called compulsory since the woman consented to inter-
course. Completing a pregnancy does not, however, require a woman
to raise a child. The "compulsory pregnancy" crowd claims adoption
is inhumane. They further deny that there is any implied agreement
on the part of the woman to supply life support systems to a child
who otherwise would not live. But many of them get violently angry
if it is suggested that the father has not given implied agreement by
his intercourse, to support the mother financially, even though any-
body or any group could substitute.
110
In other words, the father, whose role is not unique and irre-
placeable, is to be held responsible for his actions, but the mother,
whose role is irreplaceable, is not to be held responsible for hers.
A word about unwantedness is also necessary. The concept of un-
wantedness creates classes of people. Among the people who fit in the
second class thus created are adopted children, children of single
mothers, biracial and other nonwhite children, and females.
Concerning girls, Caroline Bird, in "Born Female," tells us that
more couples hope that their unborn children will turn out to be
male than female. If completely successful sex selection were prac-
ticed, there would be 125 boys born for every 100 girls. This quote,
by Orlando J. Miller, M.D., illustrates the resultant view when com-
bined with an abortion mentality :
"In a social climate in which unwanted pregnancy is sufficient
indication for abortion, criteria for selective abortion might be broad-
ened considerably, for example, eliminating carriers of a sickle cell
or cystic fibrosis gene or even of two X chromosomes at the request
of the parents." I might add that the possessor of two X chromo-
somes is commonly known as a woman.
Abortion is bad for society. Other persons testifying before me
have claimed that abortion reduces welfare costs. What they are
doing is citing the obvious and ignoring the possibility of new fac-
tors. I am giving you a copy of the Wynn report from England, that
is the blue booklet, which cites the damage caused to subsequent
children by abortion.
The abortion leaders here in the United States have admitted they
simply do not know anything about the effects of abortion beyond
a few weeks. One instance of damage to subsequent children alone
will suffice to show the true cost to society of abortion. A common
result of first trimester abortion is prematurity in subsequent chil-
dren. Prematurity is a major cause of cerebral palsy. Where abortion
equals live births, prematurity for the population as a whole nearly
doubles. I called the United Cerebral Palsy and asked them the cost
to society of cerebral palsy. I was told, billions of dollars in lost
productivity alone, not to mention the cost of special equipment and
training.
In Communist countries the abortion laws have been tightened
because of the cost to society and to women. Will we learn from their
experiences or must we subject millions of women to abortion to
make our own statistics? As Santayana said, "those who do not
remember the past are condemned to relive it." Abortion is bad for
women. It is bad whether legal or illegal. Legal abortionists have
compromised the basis of their medical ethics. They have compro-
mised away their healing art and have become the technocrats of
death. Why should they support the right to life and the health of
the women '. The statistics prove they do not.
Legal abortion results in an overall complication rate to women
which is horrendous: 35 percent of all women aborted in Germany
-utlei long-term ill effects. In Japan the figure is 29 percent. In
Canada, 39 percent among teenagers. In Czechoslovakia, 20 to 30
percent. In Australia, two studies show figures of 20 percent and
70 percent, the latter in a public hospital.
Ill
Logic alone should verify this point. Which is more dangerous
for women, a natural process, or the abrupt interruption of it?
Are doctors interested in the health of women? Not when 7 out of
9 male urine samples tested in abortion clinics in London were re-
ported as positive for pregnancy. Not when results are similarly
falsified in major cities in the United States. Not when the most
notorious abortionist in Canada, Dr. Henry Morgentaler, is known
to be aborting women 20 percent of whom are not pregnant.
The abortionists are candid : They are not for women's rights; they
are for their own financial gain; their own self-interest.
A number of quotations will bear this out:
From a former abortionist :
It was easy to see these women as animals.
From those still active.
The great thing about the Abortion Act is that is has given us the opportunity
to perpetuate Hitler's progressive thinking.
Another quote :
Financially, after years of struggle, I can't help feeling a little like the
Texan who drilled for water and struck oil.
Another quote :
A syndicate invited me to be its medical director for up to $250,000 a year.
Another quote :
But if the courts declare abortion laws unconstitutional, the doctors will say,
"Now it is against the law not to do abortions" — and then they will do them,
for in some cases they may be sued if they don't.
Quote :
Each country will have to decide its own form of coercion. At present, the
means available are compulsory sterilization and compulsory abortion.
This quote was from Dr. Alan Guttmacher:
In 1967, women coming in to see us about terminating pregnancy had to jus-
tify that. Now I feel about any pregnancy if a woman can justify keeping a
pregnancy, that is okay. But if she can't, get rid of it.
The abortionists are using women's bodies to promote the Govern-
ment ideal of population control : They are gaining financially from
using women's bodies to perpetuate the Government's population
policy.
They have indicated to each other that the tactic is to obscure
the humanity of the unborn child, and the fact that abortion kills
a baby. They instruct each other never to call the unborn children
babies but always to call them fetuses. Thus they have used a scien-
tific term of somewhat obscure meaning to the general public as a
niggerizing term much like the term broad as applied to women. The
purpose : to dehumanize. Do they honestly believe that this child
is only a blob of tissue? Well, as one satirical author from Canada
would have it, everyone knows that the baby's body is instantaneously
formed at the moment of birth !
Feminists who hold that unborn babies are only blobs of tissue are
known in prolife feminist circles as "blob feminists".
But what do proabortionists really think about the humanity of
the unborn and about the nature of abortion? I have some further
quotes :
112
Abortion is the taking of a life.
Another quote:
An abortion . . . kills the life of a baby after it has begun.
Another quote:
Fertilization, then, has taken place : a baby has been conceived.
Quote :
The staff are now required to be involved in the induced abortion of a large
fetus which neither resembles a "blob" ... or a "group of cells"— but very much
resembles a baby.
And finally, quote:
Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced, it has been necessary to
separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing which continues to be
socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific
fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception, and
is continuous, whether intra- or extra-uterine, until death. The very consid-
erable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as any-
thing but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put
forth under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophre-
nic sort of subterfuge is necessary because, while a new ethic is being accepted,
the old one has not yet been rejected.
Every quote which I have read you so far comes from leaders,
either groups or individuals, in the abortion movement who want
abortion on demand and more.
So it appears that women's bodies are not only being used to pro-
mote population control, but they even lie to women about the un-
born child, and about what abortion does. If there was ever a philos-
ophy which was degrading to women, it is the philosophy that we
must lie to women, cheat them, ant fool them in order to get their
money and reduce population. Do women want to be instruments to
perpetuate Hitler's progressive thinking? No, we do not.
Do wo need abortion? The answer to that question is no. That is,
if we are willing to care enough. There are many ways in which
women can be helped without creating destruction. I will name a
few. Enforcement of existing laws against discrimination, such as
the fifth and 14th amendments, the Fair Labor Standards Act of
1963, title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Employ-
ment Opportunities Act of 1972, the Educational Amendments of
1972, and the Public Health Service Act as amended in 1971. The
ratification and implementation of the equal rights amendment. The
establishment of maternity communes where single women with chil-
dren, bom and unborn, can go and live and share resources. Hospices
for the elderly. An effective natural birth control method, such as
the ovulation method, which allows women to control their fertility
before conception without drugs, devices or surgery, and is 98.5 per-
cent effective. The recognition that consent to sex' on the part of a
man is an unspoken contract guaranteeing that he will support a
woman and her unborn child until birth takes place. The creation
of ;i society in which rape is unknown. Corporations who are willing
to take the blame for the pollution they cause rather than blaming
the future generation. An ecological movement that teaches indi-
viduals t<» respect the environment, starting with the elimination of
Jitterbugs. A society dedicated to the proposition that we should
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remove political barriers to food and fertilizer distribution instead of
people.
A society which is not dedicated to planned obsolescence, which is
dedicated to the proposition that the way to stabilize the population
is to help the third world nations become fully developed technologi-
cally and educationally, that recognizes that each human crisis leads
to progress, that recognizes technology as a servant and not the mas-
ter of men and women, that does not direct itself against the bodies
and minds of women. In other words, a society which respect each
and everyone of us as a unique and irreplaceable individual entitled
to life, liberty, and property.
A final comment about choice of language in the human life amend-
ment. The purpose of the amendment is to reverse the Supreme Court
decisions of January 22, 1973. Any reasonable amendment should do
this.
However, it is our feeling that a good amendment would have the
following characteristics: (1) It will specifically define human life
as beginning at conception or fertilization, which is synonymous;
(2) It would provide protection for all innocent life from conception
till natural death, and include the aged, ill, incapacitated, and the
physically and mentally handicapped; (3) It will prohibit both State
and private action or inaction which will lead to the deliberate de-
struction of innocent life without due process of law; (4) It will not
permit abortion for physical health or mental or social considerations,
but will permit abortion when there is an immediate physical threat
to the life of the mother, from the pregnancy; (5) It will not permit
the States to allow abortion or positive euthanasia to be legal. We
do not cry "States rights" in reference to sexual discrimination; we
will not permit the cry "States' rights" for killing based on ageism.
At this time I would like to add a few comments not in my printed
testimony.
I am submitting to you, personally, Senator Bayh, a letter request-
ing that our attorney, Donald L. Billman, be permitted to testify
orally before this body. He will testify as our representative. We do
not feel that our testimony as an organization is complete without
you having had the opportunity to ask him questions. He is one of
the foremost authorities in the field.
In a recent letter to you he made a couple of points worth repeat-
ing and I quote his letter:
The basis for all individual rights is the Bill of Rights— The first ten Amend-
ments — however, it is the Fourteenth Amendment which championed the cause
of civil liberties for all persons and assured the supremacy of the Constitution
and the rule of law, justice and reason over the fickle nature of the human race.
After ten years of studying, it is my opinion that this Amendment, the Four-
teenth, applies to the unborn child as well as the black, the Indian and the
woman. It is my belief that the Amendment is clear that "no life shall be taken
without due process of law" and that "no person shall be denied equal protec-
tion of the laws" ! The survival of all civil rights and liberties is now in peril !
It was no mere accident that the attack was initiated by an assault upon the
Little Unborn Baby, for he is the most helpless member of our society. The
Unborn Child was chosen with care, for he is the epitome of the "unpopular
client," and it was felt — possibly not incorrectly — that he would find few de-
fenders. He is a client who can neither pay us, vote for us, thank us or or-
ganize a riot. The implications of "abortion on demand" are apparent. If this
inroad upon the vitality of the Constitution goes unchecked and reversed a
114
most powerful precedent will have been established for the proposition that an
Individual's life can be snuffed out at the whim of "Big Brother." If we who
beUeve in the Bill of Rights and true civil liberties do not rush to the defense
of the Unborn Child, we will one day soon find ourselves with a handful of
"rights" as diflBeult to retain as a handful of sand.
Ami 1 end that quote.
I might add that in the book Treblinka which describes why Jews
did not revolt against Xazi extermination a very successful technique
was used. The population was divided into two groups and only the
lives of those in the unfortunate group were taken.
The rest felt safe and so did not rebel. The safe group was divided
again and again until all were exterminated.
Gentle people, we have been divided. The unsafe group is the un-
born. How long will it be before we are in the unsafe group? The
handwriting is on the wall for those who can see it.
I am open to questions.
[The full statement of Ms. Goltz follows :]
Testimony by Pat Goltz, International President, Feminists for Life, Inc.
Senator Bayh, members of the committee, and members of the audience :
I am Pat Goltz, international president of Feminists for Life, Inc. We are
based at Box 5631, Columbus, OH 43221. We have members in 40 states, Canada,
Britain, and Mexico. We have an international information network, and I
come before you today to share with you some of the information we have
gathered on the questions of abortion and euthanasia. We are for the legal
and social equality of women and men. We are her in support of a Human Life
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which would protect
human life from conception until natural death. Our primary reason is a fem-
inist one: the only consistent philosophy a feminist can have about other in-
stances of human life is one of granting dignity to all of them. We are demand-
ing an end to class stereotyping for women ; we cannot and dare not introduce
a new class stereotype based on age, mental and physical condition, or degree
of unwantedness. We who were once defined as less than human cannot, in
claiming our rights, deny rights to others based on a subjective judgment that
they are less than human. We are all interdependent, the independent woman
no less than the unborn child ; the child no more than the most independent of
us. Without each other's help, we would all perish. Our government and our
society exists to protect the rights of each individual, and the most basic right
N that of life itself; no other right can be exercised where that right is not
guaranteed.
Throughout this talk I shall refer to the unborn child primarily in the mas-
culine. My reasons are several : 1. We do not expect to wait on our rights until
the language changes to accommodate us. 2. This is a convention of the English
language, and the masculine refers to both genders where the gender is not
known, and 3. It will be less confusing. We do not depend for our dignity on
using the feminine gender in certain contexts ; our dignity is inherent.
Abortion has been presented as a solution to the problems faced by women
with untimely pregnancies. The vast majority of these problems can be put
into one category : discrimination. We are unilaterally opposed to discrimination
based on either sex or maternal status. We reserve the right to be treated as
equals, awl to lie mothers at the same time. We will not accept the current
either/or choice. Abortion is a non-solution. Each time a woman resorts to abor-
tion, she entrenches discrimination. Each time she resorts to abortion, she re-
moves her voice from the arena in which equality for women is being demanded
and won. She allows some part of the male power structure to force her into a
tractive act, in order to be treated with the dignity which is inherent in
her. She may do serious damage to her own spirit. Many women who promote
abortion do not do so out of zeal : they are driven to it. It is the only way they
can live with their consciences. This is the reason why their movement has the
characteristics it does. They are not vocal until they find another person or
institution to attack. They have allowed their bodies to be raped by the abor-
tionist's knife, and like the victim of sexual assault, it is a traumatic experience.
115
It interrupts physical, hormonal, and psychical life streams. It is no wonder
that in every poll, more men favored abortion than women. It is no wonder that
women who have been subjected the longest to the male education establishment
(the college educated) are most likely to support abortion. Women are in tune
with the earth, the ecology. We do not destroy; we create. Women recognize
that human personhood begins biologically — at conception. We insist on our
right to exist in our full sexuality, which includes the reproductive function
as an intimate part of our psyche. We do not have to sacrifice our sexuality in
order to be equal. We will possess our full sexuality ; and we will be equal. We
insist that society provide for us and our children — all of them, no just the
ones the men want.
Some who call themselves feminists claim that men are making the decisions
for their lives. And so it is. They talk about all the men who testified herej and
the few women who did. They talk about this committee being made up solely
of men. And they conveniently forget that the abortion decision in the Supreme
court was made by seven old men ! It is convenient to claim that pregnancies
being forced on women, by men, but that abortion isn't. They simply ignore the
facts. They ignore that the Playboy Foundation, whose motto is sexual exploi-
tation of women, promotes abortion with its money. They ignore the fact that
Rockefeller money teams up with government money (voted by men) to promote
abortion. They ignore the fact that Rockefeller is a male chauvinist, who re-
marked to a young woman carrying a pro-life picket sign, "Don't knock it, girl.
You might need one someday." They ignore the fact that abortion makes women
more subject to sexual exploitation. If one does not have the truth, one ignores
the facts. One selects the rhetoric that pleases one. Let us see who are the prom-
inent people in the abortion movement. With a few exceptions out of the fem-
inist movement itself, they are all male: Hefner, Rockefeller, Guttmacher,
Packwood, Lamm, Edwards, Tietze, Ehrlich, Israel, Hall. If your choice is
based on who is promoting it, abortion loses.
Pro-abortion feminists also conveniently forget that at major conferences on
abortion, the attending feminists have been treated shoddily. A movement which
is really aimed at the liberation of women would welcome the feminists.
One technique which anti-life people use, of which you should be aware, in or-
der to watch for it, is the "hard case" technique. In this technique, the most
difficult case is chosen for presentation to the public, no matter how infre-
quently it occurs, and that case is used as justification for full permissiveness
in the abortion laws, or euthanasia practices. The hard case for the abortion
question is the case of rape. The hard case for the euthanasia question is the
person suffering from painful terminal cancer who is being kept alive by
heroic methods employed by an allegedly sadistic doctor.
We will comment on the rape-incest case. Most legislators who are basically
pro-life find this the hardest to deny. However, Feminists for Life denies it.
Let us take incest first. Incest is against the law primarily because children
of incestuous unions are much more subject to genetic deformity than average.
As such, incest belongs with "fetal deformity", not rape, and should be treated
as such. Incest is used only as an excuse for abortion, because no person will-
ingly reports incest under other circumstances ; it. is too hard on the reputa-
tion of the people involved. Rape is the only case in which a woman does not
willingly consent to intercourse. It is felt that sinoe she did not consent, she
should not be penalized by having to continue to carry the child. However, abor-
tion is also traumatic. The solution to the rape problem is not abortion, but trie
creation of a society in which rape is unknown. The immediate solution is to
teach women to report their rapes immediately so that pregnancy can be pre-
vented. Failure to do so is implied consent to provide life support to the unborn
child who may result. The immediate solution also consists of forcing changes
in attitude toward raped women so that they are not treated as common crim-
inals if they report their rapes. In rape, with pregnancy resulting, there are
actually two victims : the mother, and her baby. It is not just to kill one of the
victims for the father's crime.
A comment must also be made about the term "compulsory pregnancy" which
the other side uses. It is an emotion-laden term, and its purpose is emotional.
Its result is to take the discussion out of the realm of the rational. In actual
fact, even accidental pregnancies cannot be called compulsory since the woman
consented to intercourse. Completing a pregnancy does not, however, require
a woman to raise the child. The "compulsory pregnancy" rhetorictitians deny
adoption because it weakens their case. They claim adoption is inhuman ! ! They
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further deny that there is any implied agreement on the part of the woman
to supply life-support systems to a child who otherwise would not live, but
many of them get violently angry if it is suggested that the father has not
given an implied agreement by his intercourse, to support the mother financially,
even though anybody or any group could substitute. In other words, the father,
whose role is not unique and irreplaceable, is to be held responsible for his
actions, but the mother, whose role is irreplaceable, is not to be held responsible
for hers. This very position contradicts the claim by the same group that we
should not have equal rights without equal responsibilities and therefore should
submit to the draft if the Equal Rights Amendment is ratified.
A word about unwantedness is also necessary. The concept of unwantedness
creates classes of people. Among the people included in the second class thus
created are adopted children, children of single mothers, biracial and other
nonwhite children, and females. A short example of each: regarding adopted
children, this comment by Abigail Van Buren : "I think all children should be
wanted by their natural mothers, don't you?" Regarding children of single
mothers: some abortion authorities consider illegitimacy as practically synony-
mous to unwantedness every time they cite how abortion will cut down on ille-
gitimacy. If necessary they are prepared to use coercion to make the statistics
even better. Concerning the nonwhite, a Columbus woman who is active in the
black community once remarked to me that abortion should be allowed for
biracial children because neither the black nor the white community accepts
them readily and they meet more discrimination than most nonwhites. As the
mother of an adopted biracial child, I felt like telling her, "as long as being
biracial is considered a sufficient excuse for abortion, biracial people will not
be fully accepted by either community." Concerning girls, Caroline Bird, in
Born Female, tells us that more couples hope that their unborn children will
turn out to be male than female. If completely successful sex selection were
practiced, there would be 125 boys born for every 100 girls. The quote by Or-
lando J. Miller, MD, illustrates the resultant view when combined with the
abortion mentality :
"In a social climate in which unwanted pregnancy is sufficient indication for
abortion, criteria for selective abortion might be broadened considerably, eg
eliminating carriers of a sickle cell or cystic fibrosis gene or even of two X
chromosomes at the request of the parents, who have their own ideas of what
constitutes the optimal brood of offspring for them, qualitatively as well as
quantitatively."
It may come as a surprise to some that a very widespread and viable fem-
inist movement dedicated to the preservation of unborn life, and the life of the
elderly and defective, exists. The reason for this is quite simple : suppression. In
a movement supposedly geared to the destruction of stereotypes, a movement
which is supposed to guarantee our right to be free to be ourselves, namely the
pro-abortion feminist movement, we find the strangest of fascist tendencies.
Women are socially ostracized in feminism for speaking in favor of life. Thus,
pro-life feminists surfaced like the steam from an overheated boiler ; it built
up until the boiler could no longer hold it and then it exploded. We receive
numerous stories of suppression. The National Organization for Women sup-
presses any woman who is pro-life. It does not matter how sincere her fem-
inism on the basic issues. I will give a few examples : California, 25 women ex-
cluded from the local Now chapter — the rescheduled their meeting place and
informed only the pro-abortion women. Oregon : the Now newsletter denounces
us as pretending to be feminists. Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York City: Now
members actively kick out pro-life members. Houston : Now women who are pro-
life successfully suppressed and isolated, from all over the country, not daring
to speak out on abortion at all. Ohio : a pro-life Now member denounced in
public in the rotunda of the State House; the president of the chapter orders
her not to discuss abortion with any Now member at any time or place. The
Now chapter refuses to sell advertising space to Feminists for Life, although
the revenue is needed badly. Other feminists groups act likewise: Massachusetts
women's liberation group, all 300 of them, kick out on pro-life member. Birth-
right chapters hassled all over the country by feminists. The League of Women
Voters in some New England states orders their members to drop out of Right
to Life Altoona, Pennsylvania: the local Now chapter tries to threaten any
radio station which plays Seals and Crofts' Fnborn Child; and succeeds. Other
places where the song is suppressed include Boston. New York City.
Another reason why strong feminist support for unborn and other unwanted
life has been obscured is the nature of the treatment in the media. As one
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woman, a feminist reporter from Canada, put it to me recently, "the press tried
to find a plank in the feminist platform they could support without jeopardizing
their own entrenched power structure to invasion by qualified women. They
found it : abortion." Another example of what the press has done is their re-
sponse to our recent picketing of the national convention of Now : in most cases
the name of the picketing group was not even mentioned, and the two major
wire services left the strong implication (by conveniently quoting Ms. Wilma
Scott Heidi, outgoing Now president, immediately following their description
of the picketing) that we were "right to lifers". While we do not mind that
designation, it is misleading, because not all right to lifers are feminists, the
movement being as broad based as it is, and because we feel that the mislabeling
implication, if intentional, was done because the media do not wish to admit
that there is feminist opposition to abortion. If the media are not afraid of
us, let them call us by our right name. We are PRO-LIFE FEMINISTS. We
support full equality for women. Our reason for picketing was twofold : the
denial of rights to unborn women by the preexisting feminist groups, and the
social ostracism and fascist techniques used against feminists who are pro-life
and not afraid to say so.
People who know they have the truth do not fear open debate. We are sup-
pressed because they know we are right !
We keep hearing the claim that we are a tiny, vocal minority. A few figures
prove otherwise. In Ohio, before the Supreme Court decision, the Ohio Abor-
tion Alliance had 800 members, as reported to me by its president. At the same
time, the Ohio Right to Life Society had 40,000 members. Currently, the Ohio
Abortion Alliance has been dissolved, and it is estimated that the Ohio Right
to Life Society has between 100,000 and 150,000 members. The National Organi-
zation for Women has 36,000 members currently, while the League of Women
Voters has 160,000. The LWV is believed to have recently decided to support
abortion. If so, it would be the largest organization that does. However, the
pro-life movement at present is estimated to number at least 3.5 million.
The pro-abortion people sought at first to repeal or modify firm abortion laws
by means of a state referendum. They succeeded by a narrow margin in Wash-
ington state, before the sleeping giant of the grass-roots pro-life population
woke up. They missed badly in Michigan and North Dakota, where referenda
were voted down overwhelmingly 2 to 1 in Michigan (after only about 3 weeks
of pro-life publicity) and 4 to 1 in North Dakota. It is interesting to note that
the pro-abortion forces often cite Michigan because they believed the victory
there was due to a very Catholic influence, so that they could exercise their
religious bigotry, but they never mention North Dakota, because as everybody
knows, North Dakota is only about 14% Catholic, and if everyone of them had
voted pro-abortion, the referendum would still have been defeated by an over-
whelming majority. Having discovered who the real minority was, the pro-
abortion forces tried in only a few places to achieve permissive abortion in the
legislatures, but fought their battle after that predominantly in the courts,
which could be responsive to clever propaganda primarily because they are
not answerable to the electorate. And so, even though pro-abortion people make
loud noises now and then about a national referendum, they have never actively
sought one because they know they are the vocal minority. If I am wrong, let
them prove it.
Consider the polls : when Gallup or Harris polled a small group of people on
abortion, their questions did not even contain the word "abortion". Asking how
anyone can take a poll about anything without using the term referring to the
subject in question, another poll was conducted, using the word "abortion",
which gave the viewpoint to pro-life by a sizeable margin.
Abortion is bad for society. Other persons testifying before me have claimed
that abortion reduces welfare costs. What they are doing is citing the obvious
and ignoring the possibility of new factors. First of all and most importantly,
you are not doing the poor a favor by having as your reason the reduction of
costs. Moreover, some abortion leaders have stated that abortion is not intended
as racial genocide, it just happens to work out that way. I am giving you a
copy of the Wynn Report, from England, which cites the damage caused to
subsequent children by abortion. The abortion leaders here have admitted
they simply don't know anything about the effects of abortion beyond a few
weeks. One instance of damage to subsequent children alone will suffice to show
the true cost to society of abortion. A common result of first trimester abortion
is prematurity in subsequent children. Prematurity is a major cause of cerebral
118
palsy. Where abortion equals live births, prematurity for the population as a
win tie nearly doubles. I called United Cerebray Palsy and asked them the cost
to Boclety of cerebral palsy. I was told, billions of dollars in lost productivity
alone, not to mention the cost of special equipment and training. If we do not
stop abortion soon, we can expect the cost, both financially and in terms of
human lives, to double very soon. And that cost in financial terms alone will be
in Millions of dollars. In Communist countries the abortion laws have been
tightened because of the cost to society and to women. Will we learn from their
experiences or must be subject millions of women to abortion to make our own
statistics? As Santayana said, "those who do not remember the past are con-
demned to relive it."
Abortion is bad for women. It is bad whether legal or illegal. Legal abor-
tionists have compromised the basis of their medical ethics : they have com-
promised away their healing art and become the technocrats of death. Why
should they respect the right to life and health of the women? The statistics
prove they do not. Legal abortion results in an overall complication rate to
women which is horrendous : 35% of all women aborted in Germany suffer long-
term ill effects. In Japan, the figure is 29%. In Canada, 39% among teenagers.
In Czechoslovakia, 20-30%. In Australia, two studies show figures of 20% and
70%, the latter in a public hospital. The death rate from statistics taken in
numerous countries is twice as high for first trimester abortion as it is for
pregnancy and childbirth. Logic alone should verify this point : which is more
dangerous for women: the natural process, or the abrupt interruption of it?
If you are interested in preserving the health of women, pass a Human Life
Amendment and enforce it. Dr. Christopher Tietze, who is pro-abortion, and a
renowned demographer, says that legalizing abortion does not reduce illegal
abortion rates. Other authorities claim that 90% of illegal abortions are done
by competent doctors. What legalizing abortion does is to increase the total
done. Because you have the legal abortions on top of the illegal ones.
Are the doctors interested in the health of women? Not when 7 out of 9 male
urine samples tested in abortion clinics in London were reported as positive
for pregnancy. Not when results are similarly falsified in major cities in the
United States. Not when the most notorious abortionist in Canada, Dr. Henry
Morgentaler, is known to be aborting women, 20% of whom are not pregnant.
The abortionists are candid : they are not for women's rights ; they are for their
own financial gain ; their own self-interests :
From a former abortionist : "It was easy to see these women as animals."
From those still active : "The great thing about the Abortion Act is that it has
given us the opportunity to perpetuate Hitler's progressive thinking."
"Financialy, after years of struggle, I can't help feeling a little like the
Texan who drilled for water and struck oil." "A syndicate invited me to be its
medical director for up to $250,000 a year."
"But if the courts declare abortion laws unconstitutional, the doctors will
say, 'Now it is against the law not to do abortions" — and then they will do them,
for in some cases they may be sued if they don't."
"Each country will have to decide its own form of coercion. At present, the
means available are compulsory sterilization and compulsory abortion." ". . .
failure of the voluntary restraints has made government controls (on popula-
tion ) absolutely necessary."
"Population control, whatever form it takes, must be mandatory to be suc-
cessful. We must consider enforced contraception, whether through taxation on
surplus children, or through more severe means, such as conception-license re-
placing or supplementing marriage license." "Just as we have laws compelling
death control, so we must have laws requiring birth control — the purpose being
to ensure a zero rate of population growth."
Tbe abortionists are using women's bodies to promote a government ideal of
of population control : they are gaining financially from using women's bodies
to perpetuate the government's population policy.
They have indicated to each other that the tactic is to obscure the humanity
of the unborn child, and the fact that abortion kills a baby. They instruct
each other never to call the unborn chilren "babies" but always to call them
"fetuses". Thus they have used a scientific term to somewhat obscure meaning
as a nlggerlzing term much like the term "broad" as applied to women. The
purpose: to dehumanize. Do they honestly believe that this child is only a
blob "f tisane? Well, as one satirical author from Canada would have it. every-
one knows that the baby's body is instantaneously formed at the moment of
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birth! Feminists who hold that unborn babies as only blobs of tissue are
known in pro-life feminists circles as "blob feminists". Futhermore to those
who claim the baby is part of the mother's body, we state: either we women
are sometimes part male, or we are all female and proud of it. Or to put it
in the words of a 9 year old: Did you ever see a woman with testicles? But
what do pro-abortionists say about the humanity of the unborn? About the
nature of abortion?
"Abortion is the taking of a life." — Mary Calderone, MD
"An abortion . . . kills the life of a baby after it has begun."— Planned
Parenthood
Fertilization, then, has taken place; a baby has been conceived." — Alan
Guttmacher, MD
"A woman's right of privacy may well include the right to remove an un-
wanted child at least in the early stage of pregnancy." —Judge Gerhard
Gesell, in US vs Milan Vuitch
"The staff are now required to be involved in the induced abortion of a large
fetus which neither resembles a 'blob' ... or a 'group of cells'— but very much
resembles a baby." — Christa Keller, Pamela Copeland, abortion counsellors
"The fetal deformity clause is not included for the sake of the fetus (no one
can speak for him no matter how hard some try) or for the sake of society,
but for the sake of the pregnant woman." — Jimmye Kimmey, Association for
the Study of Abortion
"Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced, it has been necessary
to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing which continues to
be socially abhorrent. The results has had a curious avoidance of the scientific
fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception, and is
continuous, whether intra- or extra-uterine, until death. The very considerable
semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything
but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth
under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort
of subterfuge is necesary because, while a new ethic is being accepted, the
old one has not yet been rejected." — from an editorial favoring abortion-on-
demand in the Journal, California State Medical Association.
So it appears that women's bodies are not only being used to promote popu-
lation control, but they even lie to women about the unborn child, and about
about what abortion does. If there was ever a philosophy which was degrading
to women, it is the philosophy that we must lie to women, cheat them, and
fool them, in order to get their money, and reduce the population. Do women
want to be the instruments to perpetuate Hitler's progressive thinking? No,
we do not.
I'd like to talk for just a moment about euthanasia. Feminists for Life has
not had a stress euthanasia as much because so far, we have not received the
kind of suppression on this issue that we receive on the abortion issue. But
euthanasia is an area of no less concern. It appears to be self-evident that one
possible reason for the promotion of euthanasia is because women are treated
as second-class citizens. You will note that the Supreme Court declared that
abortion is to be permitted because the unborn are not human "in the whole
sense". Well, neither are the elderly, the retarded, the unwanted infant, or
the physically deformed. Who comprise the majority of the elderly? Women.
60% of the persons above age 65 are women. They are considered a burden
on society because most of them are poor : they don't get enough social security.
In past societies women were not persons "in the whole sense" and in our
society, soon elderly women will not be persons "in the whole sense" either. We
are opposed to euthanasia because it takes innocent life in over half of whom
are unwanted women.
Do we need abortion and euthanasia for women? The answer to that question
is no. That is, if we are willing to care enough. There are many ways in
which women can be helped without creating destruction. I will name a few.
Enforcement of existing laws against discrimination, such as the fifth and
fourteenth amendment, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1963, Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Employment Opportunities Act of
1972. the Education Amendments of 1972. and the Public Health Service Act
as amended in 1971. The ratification and implementation of the Equal Rights
Amendment. True equality of opportunity in wages, training, and advance-
ment in the employment field. Nondescrimination in employment and other areas
regarding the pregnant. The establishment of maternity communes, where
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single women with children, born and unborn, can go and live and share
resources. Hospices for the elderly. An effective natural birth control method,
such as the Ovulation Method, which allows women to control their fertility
before conception without drugs, devices or surgery, and is 98.5% effective.
The creation of a masculine image which included the strength of character
in a man to take the responsibility for his sexual acts : the recognition that
consent to sex on the part of men is an unspoken contract guaranteeing that
he will support a woman and her unborn child until birth takes place. The
creation of a society in which rape is not considered possible. Where men
do not regard rape as a mark of manhood, and where women are capable of
defending themselves from attackers, and do not hesitate to do so. A society
where raped women are not presumed guilty until proven innocent. Corpora-
tions who are willing to take the blame for the pollution they cause, rather
than blaming the future generation, and babies in general. An ecological
movement that teaches individuals to respect the environments, starting with
the elimination of litterbugs. A society dedicated to the proposition that we
should remove political barriers to food and fertilizer distribution instead
of people. A society which is not dedicated to planned obsolescence. A society
which is dedicated to the proposition that the way to stabilize the population
is to help the third world nations become fully developed technology and
educationally. That recognizes that just as technology can be used to create
problems, so can it be used to solve them. That recognizes that each human
crisis leads to progress. That recognizes technology as the servant and not the
master of men and women. That does not direct itself against the bodies and
minds of women. In other words, a society which respects each and every one
of us as a unique and irreplaceable individual, entitled to life, liberty, and
property. Dare we demand so much? How can we demand any less?
We urge you to favorably report the human life amendment out of committee
speedily. Time is of the essence. For the children killed today, tomorrow will
be too late.
A final comment about choice of language in the human life amendment : the
purpose of the amendment is to reverse the Supreme Court decisions of January
22, 1973. Any reasonable amendment should do this. However, it is our feeling
that a good amendment will have the following characteristics :
1. It will specifically define human life as beginning at conception or fertiliza-
tion, which is synonymous.
2. It will provide protection for all innocent life from conception till natural
death, and include the aged, ill, incapacitated, and the physically and mentally
handicapped.
3. It will prohibit both state and private action or inaction which will lead
to deliberate destruction of innocent life without due process of law.
4. It will no permit abortion for physical health or mental or social consider-
ations, but will permit abortion when there is an immediate physical threat to
the life of the mother, from the pregnancy.
5. It will not permit the states to allow abortion or positive euthanasia to be
legal. We do not cry "states' right" in reference to sexual discrimination ; we
will not permit the cry "states' rights" for killing based on ageism.
We must correct the negativism of the death cult speedily so we may con-
centrate on true, positive solutions to human problems. Let us get the Human
Life Amendment ratified and then let us begin to work on the solutions, starting
with this committee.
[From the Chicago Tribune]
Abortion Exploits Women
(By Gloria V. Heffernan. M.D.)
After centuries of being treated as objects, women are being presented the
final mechanical insult as a constitutional right.
The strange compulsion for abortion is in reality the ultimate exploitation
of women by immature men : technocrats, generally, imbued with a myopic
sense of social awareness and unable to interpret or control their own sexuality.
The playboys of the Western world and the authoritarian "adolescents" of the
Socialist world sacrifice their women in order to preserve their dream of
llbidinal freedom. It is the women who must go to surgery over and over again
121
to insure this dream. The whimpering male refused to take responsibility for
his sexual behavior.
It is no surprise that Playboy Foundation money is now competing with
Rockefeller Foundation money to promote the concept of permissive abortion.
The rich man's solution lias become the purile male's solution and the last
vestige of responsibility and commitment has disappeared.
It is the woman who has been deliberately misled by the male-dominated
medical prefession into thinking that abortion is merely contraception slightly
postponed. The serious physical and psychic consequences of this self-serving
deception are muted despite a wealth of medical literature from the United
States and foreign countries.
It is a national disgrace that the American College of Obstetrics and Gyne-
cology is not in the forefront of the fight against abortion. The depth of this
deception is brought out in two recent articles. Dr. Richard L. Burt in editorial
comment in Obstetrics & Gynecology, April, 1971, terms permissive abortion
"the Fifth Horseman" riding with famine, death, pestilence, and plague.
He catalogs the serious side effects reported from Scandinavian and Eastern
European countries with a long experience in legal abortion. These include
hemorrhage, infection, prematurity in subsequent pregnancies, sterility, perfora-
tion and the psychic sequels of guilt and depression.
This alarm is echoed in another article in the British journal Lancet, De-
cember 4th, 1971, in which Dr. J. A. Staillworthy decries the conspiracy of
silence about the side effects of abortion.
A minimal adherence to the concept of informed consent is ignored by most
referral services and pro-abortion professors of obstetrics and gynecology. This
frightening failure of the medical profession is most apparent in the continued
use of the "salting out" method of abortion by American physicians in the face
of the condemnation of this procedure by the Japanese medical profession.
The recent report by Christopher Tietze in Family Planning Perspective,
October, 1971, of a 22.4 percent serious complication rate using this procedure
documents the American tragedy— a needless mortality and morbidity that
incriminates the American Medical Association and the American College of
Obstetrics and Gynecology in corporate malpractice for not banning this pro-
cedure.
The greatest tragedy, however, lies in the fact that doctors have renounced
their ethics to become social technicians rationalizing their position with dreary
cliches and denying their own science to make it fit vague sociological impera-
tives. The traditional responsibility in obstetrics for two patients has been
denied by the abortionists when the whole thrust of scientific medical practice
has been to bring the healing arts to the child in the uterus, just as it does
to any patient.
We find the medical technicians claiming the organs and bodies of the aborted
children for human experimentation; some of them still alive. What horrible
echoes are these from the recent past !
What can we expect from a society that can rationalize away the most fun-
damental of human values — the value of life? What is to become of a medical
profession that substitutes self-serving cliches for its ethics? What is to become
of women who would ask the courts to institutionalize death as a legitimate
tool for solving personal problems? Such a society is doomed to an unending
spiral of violence if women do not change it.
Women must deny violence a legitimate place in our society by rejecting the
first violence — abortion. The women of this society must say to purile men that
the game is over. You can no longer exploit our bodies either in your center
fold or in your hospitals.
Feminists foe Life
Our organization takes two stands: (1) Full equality for women in all areas.
(2) The right of every baby to be born. We demand an end to all legal, social,
and economic discrimination against women, including mass media stereotypes.
We recognize all people as individuals with equal rights, including the unborn.
We believe it is inconsistent to demand rights for ourselves and deny them to
unborn babies. Without the right to life, all other rights are meaningless.
Furthermore, since roughly 50 percent of the unborn are girls, half the abor-
tions kill our sisters.
122
We hope to see an end to proabortion stands in other feminist organizations.
Bv diverting time and energy into abortion legislation, these groups have de-
emphasized the struggle for legal and social equality. In addition, they have
deterred many potential feminists from joining the movement.
We are an independent organization. We accept men on an equal basis with
women. Our goals now follow :
(1) To encourage prolife feminists to join the feminist movement.
(2) To acquaint prolife people with the goals of feminism.
(3) To provide a forum for women who feel that joining a proabortion
feminist organization would compromise their principles.
(4) To encourage women to become educated in pregnancy, childbirth, and
other aspects of female sexuality.
(5) To help people to become knowledgeable on both sides of the abortion
issue
(6) To encourage efforts to alleviate the problems in society which cause
women to seek abortions.
(7) To promote equal opportunity and equal protection of the laws regardless
of SGX.
(8) To take an active part in eliminating sexual stereotyping in the mass
media advertising, and childhood education.
(9) To promote a strong, flexible family structure.
(10) To encourage women to take pride in being women.
(11) To help women recover their historical and cultural heritage.
(12) To develop strategies for teaching women how to develop competitive
techniques in the world without sacrificing warmth and nurturance in the home.
(13) To develop strater'es for teaching men how to be nurturant toward their
children without sacrificing their self-image or their ability to function competi-
tively in the world.
(14) To develop strategies for gaining equality through our own strengths
as women and not at the expense of the rights or property of others.
(15) To preserve the right of those women who wish to remain in the
home as full time wives and mothers.
[From the National Catholic Reporter]
Talk of "Wanted Child" Makes fob Doll Objects
(By Sidney Callahan)
I'd like to start a campaign against the idea of "the wanted child." This
phrase is dangerous to children, even in small doses. The people who use the
phrase in efforts to control population or sell family planning programs are
well meaning, but they are sowing the seeds of subtle destruction.
The corruption involved is quite simple to grasp. If you start talking and
thinking about a child as a "wanted child" you cannot help but put the idea
into people's heads that children exist and have a right to exist only because
someone wants them. And alas, the opposite conclusion is also there waiting
for us : if it's an "unwanted child" is has no rights.
It's destructive of family life for parents even to think in these categories
of wanted and unwanted children. By using the words you set up parents with
too much power, including psychological power, over their children. Somehow
the child is being measured by the parent's attitudes and being defined by the
parent's feelings. We usually want only objects, and wanting them or not
implies that we are superior, or at least engaged in a one-way relationship,
to them.
In the same way, men have "wanted" women through the ages. Often a
woman's position was precarious and rested on being wanted by some man.
The unwanted woman could be cast off when she was no longer a desirable
object. She did not have an intrinsic dignity beyond wanting. That's what they
mean in protests against being a sex object.
Well, talking about the "wanted child" is making a child a "doll object."
When you want one, you make one or buy one, and it then has a right to exist
i glorified form of property. And woe be to the child who is no longer
ated, or who is imperfect in some way. Or who in the church does not satisfy.
Has satisfaction been given, sir? If not, the merchandise is returnable, you
know.
123
The point I'm trying to stress, of course, is that old idea in our common
culture that each human being has inviolable rights and dignity no matter
what. If you're a Jew and they don't want you in Nazi Germany, it's Germany's
shame. If you're black and they don't want you in the club, that's the club's
crime. If you're a woman and they don't want you in the job, it's their fault.
The powerful (including parents) cannot be allowed to want and unwant people
at will.
In family life, this idea of unique inviolable dignity and intrinsic value is
especially needed. Since emotions are so strong and despendency needs are so
urgent, the temptation to cop out is ever present. We don't hang in there be-
cause we always want to, or want something or somebody. The old parent, the
sick spouse, the needy child are not always wanted.
So who cares what you want, or whether other people want you? Human
beings are human beings. Every individual has his rights. A child's very exist-
ence is claim enough.
[From the National Catholic Reporter]
Feminist as Antiabobtionist
(By Sidney Callahan)
Let's get our feminism together. Right now. The feminist cause is being be-
trayed by the men and women pushing for public acceptance of the principle
of abortion on demand. Arguments used in urging routine abortion deny funda-
mental values guiding the whole women's movement.
On the issue of abortion radical feminists have completely identified with the
male aggressor ; they spout a straight machismo ideology, with a touch of Adam
Smith. The worst of traditional male power plays are being embraced and
brandished by those who have suffered from them the most. Every slogan in
the pro-abortion arsenal is male-oriented and a sell-out of feminist values. For
instance :
(1) "The fetus isn't human and has no right to life." But the feminist move-
ment insists that men cease their age-old habit of withholding human status
from women, blacks, Jews, Indians, Asians and any other helpless or different
instances of human life. Women encourage rights to life, and value potential
life. To deny the fact that human life is always a growing process through time
is a failure of imagination and emphathy. Out of sight, out of mind, may do
for a bombardier's conscience but not for a feminist movement dedicated to
ending unilateral suppression of life. Embryonic life is also life, life with a
built-in future.
(2) "Any problem pregnancy should be terminated early by a qualified med-
ical professional employing the best technological techniques." Yet the feminist
movement has persistently protested impersonal professional technologies which
efficiently ignore not only emotions but the real roots of complex human prob-
lems. Males have always searched, destroyed, cut, burned and aggressively
attacked anything in the way without regard to context, consequences and
natural interrelationships. Women have been committed to creative nonviolent
alternatives which seek more lasting solutions. Feminist values are highly
attuned to conservation and the achievement of social and ecological health.
What irony that a society confronted with plastic bags filled with fetal re-
mains, or fetal "wastage," could worry more about the problem of recycling
the plastic. So where have all the flowers gone?
(3) "A woman has the right to control her own body." How valiently the
feminist movement has struggled against the male obsession to control. As
they find in every prison, to fully control, you kill. The Dostoevski hero comes
to mind who extinguished an insignificant life in order to assert his existential
freedom to control his destiny. Any view of mere bodies as separate and sub-
ordinate to the self smells of an alienation reminiscent of male gnostic anxiety.
Men have always tried to detach themselves from the body, viewing female
bodies in particular as a form of property. Men are only too happy to separate
female "reproductive systems" from the self. More middle-class men favor
elective abortion than any other group, not only because it accords with male
convenience, male strategies, but also because it suits the male norm of a
human body. Full feminine sexuality is a threat, better to have women look
124
at their own bodies as objects which they can manipulate at will and keep
under control. Privately, discreetly, efficiently, with no messy demands.
(4) "Males have no right to speak or legislate on the abortion issue, since
abortion is solely a matter between a woman and her physician.'" This argu-
ment is used to browbeat men (how to mau-mau the male power structure),
but it is contrary to other feminist demands. Women now insist on their right
to speak out on war not only because their husbands and sons die, but because
it is a human concern. Feminists justly demand equal male-female cooperation,
decision-making and mutual responsibility in all areas of social life. In par-
ticular, women will no longer bear the sole responsibility for childbearing.
They insist (quite rightly) that men and the society at large accept their re-
sponsibility for the next generation by providing public day-care, health pro-
grams and other measures which will support and help women. Only with
abortion does community concern become disallowed. Men are angrily dis-
qualified, although over half the aborted fetuses are male and all fetuses are
fathered. Each fetus not only has a direct link to a male, but genetically and
physically it is linked to the human species as a whole. Who owns the human
species? Or the gene pool? Who owns life? We don't let people in the name
of private property pollute their own water, contaminate their own air or
shoot their own eagles; so how can aborting potential human life not be a
public socio-legal concern.
I propose that a truly feminist approach to abortion would ;
(1) Display an advocacy of life no matter how immature, helpless or different
it is from white, middle-class, adult males who have heretofore preempted the
right to be fully human.
(2) Affirm that full feminine humanity includes distinctly feminine func-
tions. Women need not identify with male sexuality, male aggression and
wombless male lifestyles in order to win social equality. Getting into the club
is not worth the price of alienation from body-life, emotion, emphathy and
sensitivity.
(3) Assert that abortion is a two-sex community decision in which the rights
and welfare of women, fetuses, children, fathers, families and the rest of the
community be considered and arbitrated. The whole society has a responsibility
for human life and the next generation. Women and men should urge and sup-
port nonviolent creative alternatives to abortion. Facing such a painful problem
we cannot give in to simpleminded sexist slogans and a property rights ethic.
Life is not that easy.
[From the National Catholic Reporter]
"Abortion Positions — So Who's the Radical?"
(By Charles E. Fager)
What service does abortion serve in our society? It eliminates an obstacle
to the freer mobility of certain women within it. The letters were full of
outraged detail about just how much of a social and economic disaster an un-
planned pregnancy can be for a woman — particularly a woman alone, particu-
larly a woman trying to break out of the old wife-mother role she has been
raised to fit into. To me this is all evidence that our social order is organized
inhumanely, that it excludes as well as the nonwhite, the poor, the aged and
others, pregnant mothers and the unborn.
It is enough of a struggle to raise wanted children adequatey if you are not
affluent, to try to do it alone, and while pursuing a vocation, is extremely
difficult. It is not hard to see why, as one writer put it, a woman could feel
"She has the right to decide against physical pain, discomfort and disfigure-
ment ; she has a right to decide against rearing a fatherless child ; she has
the right to decide against assuming ultimate responsibility for another human
being; she has the right to decide against the physical and emotional drains
of child-rearing. She has the right to decide for autonomy; she has a right
to decide for satisfaction in work and fulfillment in non-biological creation; she
lias a right to decide in favor of that freedom traditionally granted man,
namely, to pursue truth or folly, unfettered, unencumbered, nurtured instead
of nurturing, encouraged rather than encouraging, comforted as opposed to
giving comfort, mobile, not static, moving forward as a whole, free, growing
organism."
125
If a decision to abort means a choice between these options, it is hardly sur-
prising that many women would choose the abortion.
But why couldn't women faced with such a repugnant choice perceive abor-
tion as a radicalizing experience, an ordeal into which they are coerced by
an inhuman social order, and through which they could better be able to see
its inhumanity? Why couldn't that experience be seen the way submitting to
the draft and serving in Vietnam has been by so many GIs — as a situation in
which they are coerced into participating in the immoral destruction of life,
and which left them full of rage at those who put them in it?
The answer appears to be the acceptance of the fetus-as-nonhuman argu-
ment. Militant feminists have felt it necessary, as part of their campaign to get
restrictive abortion laws repealed, to insist that the act is of no moral weight
whatever. As one writer insisted to me, "including the unborn in the question
of abortion is absurd. . . . The carrying of this unwanted tissue can be com-
pared to having an incurable cancer in your body. What morals are involved
in removing a tumor, after all it is also an unwanted mass of tissue that the
body has created?"
There are, as many of us have read elsewhere, weighty theological figures
ready to agree, among them none more forthright than professor Joseph Flet-
cher, who wrote to me, "A fetus is a parasite, tolerable ethically only when
welcome to its hostess. If a woman doesn't want a fetus to remain growing
in her bodj she should be free to rid herself of the unwelcome intruder."
To me this is a tragic mistake ; and the sanction given it by the use in the
Supreme Court's decision of a concept of "viability" is the weakest part of
Justice Blackmun's opinion. I have examined carefully every rationale for
such a position, and have found none that is not shot through with internal
inconsistencies and contradictions. Most boil down to the proposition that a
fetus is not human if someone else, usually the mother, chooses not to regard
it as human, a standard we would not permit to be applied to any other form
of human life, potential or realized.
But the point to keep before us is that the source of most "unwantedness"
is institutional. It is the present social order, and the attitudes that sustain it,
which will not accept and make provision for "unwanted" pregnancies (that is,
pregnancies not supported by the options of affluence) and the women who
carry them. This "unwantedness" is enforced on women through a frightening
panoply of sanctions.
Many of the letters insisted that as a male I could not posisbly have any
understanding of what a woman faced with an unplanned pregnancy had to
deal with. Yet I think that most of my generation faced a situation which,
viewed from the angle I have just suggested, is in many ways analogous.
I am speaking of the draft. It served the function of providing the manpower
for our war machine, a function that in our time has been seen widely as
morally repugnant. It came upon us individually, in isolation, with demands
for a substantial chuck of our time (much more than a pregnancy incidentally),
and possibly our lives. Great institutional forces came with it to enforce its
demands upon us. In this situation each of us had to make hard choices, moral
choices, choices which made a great deal of difference in our lives.
The point of the analogy is that for many men, in many ways, the draft
became the occasion of consciousness-raising and then resistance, a resistance
from which a movement among them and many others grew. And now that the
battle over legalities seems to have taken a decisive turn, why could not
the women's movement come to regard unplanned pregnancies as occasions for
resistance and mutual support because the preservation and potential of life
was involved?
Such a perspective would, I believe, take it in significantly different and
more promising directions than the present disregard of fetal humanity and the
moral weight of abortion decisions can. If it is unacceptable for a society to
treat people of color or people without money as less than suman and not
entitled to a fair share of the fruits of that society, how can we be ready to
permit individuals to make such judgments independently of moral consider-
ations?
A radical understanding of the meaning and value of life, in my view, must
be, in fundamental opposition to that of our established order, as broad and
nearly absolute as possible, both horizontally — including all manner and con-
dition of people — and vertically, from the moment life can be detected until
the moment it ends. We should work to build a society that embodies this view
126
as closely as possible; and where the forces of the status quo deny it, even
and particularly in its beginning, that is where the making of a revolution
should start.
Abortion is the taking of a life. —Mary Calderone, MD, former medical di-
rector of Planned Parenthood.
An abortion . . . kills the life of a baby after it has begun. —Plan Your
Children for Health And Happiness, NY, August, 1963, Planned Parenthood.
Fertilization, then, has taken place ; a baby has been conceived. — Alan Gutt-
maeher, MD, late president of Planned Parenthood.
Each country will have to decide its own form of coercion. At present: the
means available are compulsory sterilization and compulsory abortion. — Alan
Guttmacher, MD.
. . failure of the voluntary restraints has made government controls (on
population) absolutely necessary. — Congressman Richard Lamm.
Population control, whatever form it takes, must be mandatory to be suc-
cessful. We must consider enforced contraception, whether through taxation
on surplus children, or through more severe means, such as conception-license
replacing or supplementing marriage license. — Robert Ardrey, Life.
Just as we have laws compelling death control, so we must have laws re-
quiring birth control — the purpose being to ensure a zero rate of population
growth. — Edgar Chasteen, in The Case for Compulsory Birth Control.
In a social climate in which unwanted pregnancy is sufficient indication for
abortion, criteria for selective abortion might be broadened considerably, eg
eliminating carriers of a sickle cell or cystic fibrosis gene or even of two X
chromosomes at the request of the parents, who have their own ideas of what
constitutes the optimal brood of offspring for them, qualitatively as well as
quantitatively. — Orlando J. Miller, M.D. in Symposium On Intrauterine Diag-
nosis.
[From the Columbus Citizen-Journal, Mar. 29, 1974]
In Pregnancy Counseling — Delays Hurting Abortion Efforts
(By Sylvia Brooks)
Planned Parenthood of Columbus is at least two weeks behind in problem
pregnancy counseling, and in some cases the delay is so long women wanting
simple abortions can not get them in local clinics.
The problem, according to executive director Mary Harris, is that the agency
does not have enough staff to handle the volume, and now over 55 per cent of
the patients are being referred by private physicians.
Local clinics, using a simple surgical procedure, will only do it on women 12
weeks pregnant, or under. Over that, the procedure becomes more complicated
and should be done in a hospital.
Mrs. Harris feels Planned Parenthood has been "caught in the middle," and
the agency has had to stop all other kinds of sexual and reproductive counsel-
ing to meet the need.
The Citizen-Journal talked with many agencies doing similar counseling,
Planned Parenthood staff, patients and others.
All said some women are being forced to go to New York because they can
not get an appointment at Planned Parenthood before the 12th week of their
pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood does not give out telephone numbers of local abortion
clinics over the telephone, and requires people to come into the agency in per-
son for information.
Mrs. Harris says the personal contact is important :
"We feel it is our obligation to counsel with a patient and not just be a
conduit. We counsel in all our other programs."
However, she said because of the increased demand, the board of the agency
would probably reconsider the prohibition against giving telephone information.
Many professional counselors, however, do not agree. Ann Kaplan, with the
Abortion Education Soeiety of Ohio, says Planned Parenthood should give out
clinir numbers over the telephone and not insist on counseling.
"They (Planned Parenthood) see abortion as a major, traumatic experience
nnd that each woman needs professional counseling. I just can't agree," Mrs.
Kaplan said.
127
One of the biggest problems faced by Planned Parenthood is that since their
abortion counseling programs were announced, private doctors have started
referring patients there at an increasing rate.
Many professionals cannot understand why doctors, now that abortion is
legal, cannot handle the counseling and referral of their own patients, as they
do with other medical problems.
However, it appears that even doctors who are not against abortion are
reticent to become involved in the abortion issue, and refer their patients to
other agencies.
Planned Parenthood officials feel the problem of abortion counseling is a
community one, and hope to try to form a coalition of agencies doing counseling
to set up a central information and referral system.
Mrs. Harris says the Medical Advisory Committee of the agency will meet,
and she hopes they approach the Academy of Medicine to ask for help in work-
ing out the problems.
Mrs. Harris also said the agency would try to find funds to hire additional
counseling staff — they now have two people working 60 hours total per week —
and would try to work with all community groups interested in the problem.
[From the Feminists for Life, Jan. 14, 1974]
The Abortion Kickbacks
(By Roger Rapoport)
Not all Los Angeles hospitals have to pay $50 to $100 to acquire patients. At
least two prime suppliers of patients, the Rev. J. Hugh Anwyl — who used to
be in the business of saving souls before he got into selling bodies — and Dr.
Morton Barke firmly believe in volume discounts. During 1971 andn 1972 they
sent 7,706 abortion cases to suburban Montclair Hospital at a mere $20 a head.
The deal between the doctor and the reverend began in 1970. Anwyl, a former
minister of the Mt. Hollywood Congregational Church, was then director of
Clergy Counseling Service for Problem Pregnancies, and he also processed
abortion referrals for Planned Parenthood/Los Angeles. When Anwyl met Dr.
Barke, the reverend immediately began referring abortion cases to the gyne-
cologist's personally owned West Coast Medical Group. Then Dr. Barke helped
set up National Abortion Council to get still more patients. NAC did little more
than take calls from abortion patients who were responding to NAC ads — and
referred the callers to Dr. Barke.
The Clergy Counseling Service and National Abortion Council referrals made
Barke's West Coast Medical Group flourish. In the summer of 1971, Dr. Barke
went to A.R. Markey, chairman of Century Medical Inc., which owned Mont-
clair Hospital. Why not turn the money-losing, 34-bed facility into an abortion
hospital? Barke promised to supply Montclair with 2,000 patients a month if
Markey would pay $20 a head to National Abortion Council. Markey agreed and
Barke began shipping in patients. But not enough. He fell short of his guaran-
tee. So he went to Anwyl, who came up with a new source of patients. In the
fall of 1971 Anwyl merged Clergy Counseling Service with Planned Parenthood/
Los Angeles and directed abortion referral work for both organizations. Since
federally funded Planned Parenthood is the country's largest family planning
agency, with over 700 clinics nationwide, it was easy for the Rev. Anwyl to
persuade affiliates in states where abortions were illgal to refer patients to his
friend, Barke, for abortions at Montclair.
By November, 1971 Barke's West Coast Medical Group had expanded to a
staff or eight doctors, two nurses and 20 clerical workers. Thanks to Anwyl,
patients were flying in from all over. They were picked up one by one of the
air-conditioned, 12-passenger vans from Barke's group, whisked to Montclair
for quick abortions and returned to the airport within hours. Montclair paid
$20 to Planned Parenthood/Los Angeles or NAC for each patient, regardless
of whether she paid cash or was covered by the California version of Medicaid,
Medi-Cal. The kickbacks were made under the guise of payments for psycho-
logical testing and evaluation, which consisted of the following at NAC : just
prior to their abortions, National Abortion Council patients filled out a one-
page questionnaire. These forms were taken to the NAC office where a clerk
rubber stamped them with a psychologist's name.
128
Montclair also kicked back $20 per patient to Planned Parenthood/Los
-Vngeles for "psychological testing and evaluation." According to sources who
w.-rr with West Coast Medical Group at the time, there is no evidence that
the 'psychological testing and evaluation" was actually provided to these
patients by Planned Parenthood. Moreover, Planned Parenthood/Los Angeles
operates under a federal grant channelled to it through the Los Angeles Re-
gional Familv Planning Council, and this grant provides money for "counsel-
ing." Under the terms of the grant, Planned Parenthood/Los Angeles is pro-
hibited from receiving any second pyament for counseling services to abortion
patients. But between November 3, 1971 and March 28, 1972, it received from
Montclair $52,940 for "psychological testing and evaluation" of 2,647 abortion
patients. ,. . _, ,
According to the Rev. Anwyl— who became executive director of Planned
Parenthood/Los Angeles in 1972— the organization's '71 and '72 financial re-
ports do not show any hospital income for psychological testing and evaluation
or any other direct services charged to abortion patients. "We never accept
any payments of any kind on abortion referrals," the Rev. Anwyl says. "It's
unethical. We don't allow it because it might influence where we send our
patients. We want to be free to snd our patients to the best possible hospital."
The fact is that I have copies of 20 checks that were sent from Montclair to
Planned Parenthood/Los Angeles in payment for "psychological testing and
evaluation." The first four of these checks were sent directly to Planned Parent-
hood. But Dr. Barke wanted to be sure that Planned Parenthood was not get-
ting paid off for any of his NAC patients, so he asked Century Medical Inc.,
the owner of Montclair Hospital, to send further checks to him for forwarding.
On December 14, 1971 Century issued a check for $2,220 made out to Planned
Parenthood-West Coast Med. Group, Inc. It was mailed to the West Coast
Medical Group office and marked "personal and confidential," attention of Dr.
Morton Barke. The next eight checks were also sent to Dr. Barke who, after
examining them, had them delivered to the Rev. Anwyl. This procedure upset
Anwyl, so Century tried to strike a compromise by sending the final seven
payments — which were still marked to the attention of Dr. Barke — directly to
Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood/Los Angeles was violating the terms of its federal grant
in two ways. First, it was receiving a second payment for "psychological testing
and evaluation" of abortion patients, not permissible under the terms of its
grant. Second, it was failing to report this income to the federal government.
Both these violations could result in termination of the government funding.
More important, if there was appropriation of unreported revenue by an execu-
tive of a federally funded organization, this could lead to felony prosecution.
As for Dr. Barke, his funneling of checks to Planned Parenthood could run
afoul of the California Business and Professional Code, which prohibits physi-
cians from directing money to sources of patients. Also, any direct or indirect
financing of National Abortion Council by Dr. Barke would be a violation of
the California Business and Professional Code.
In 1972, Dr. Barke and the Rev. Anwyl became dissatisfied with the $20-a-
patient foe at Montclair. Barke tried to talk Century chairman A.R. Markey
into selling him Montclair Hospital, with Anwyl sitting in on some of the nego-
tiations. When that deal did not go through. Barke and Anwyl tried to boost
Montclair's kickback by $5 per patient. Markey balked, and the abortion patient
suppliers pulled out of Montclair in the spring of '72.
After withdrawing from Montclair. they directed their patients to Bel Air
for a time. Then. Barke became an owner of Inglewood Hospital, which im-
mediately began receiving the maiority of Planned Parenthood's cases, then
approaching 1.000 a month. The National Abortion Council changed its name
tn tlie National Family Planning Council and began offering a full range of
patient services, but the vast majority of its abortion cases ended up at Barke's
Inglewood Hospital.
[From the Medical World News, Nov. 9. 1973]
AnoRTioN in Japan After 25 Years
Risintr literally from the ashes of World War II, Japan has produced the
economic- miracle of the 20th century. To help make that miracle possible in its
bungary overcrowded islands, the Diet passed a liberal abortion law in 1948 as
a means of holding the population down.
129
But on the 25th anniversary of that law, a saddened Japanese physician
told colleagues from nearly 50 nations that his country's abortion policy has
had some unfortunate consequences : Abortion is replacing contraception, and
Japan has too few young people to care for the growing proportion of its
population over 65.
"Abortion has become a way of life," Prof. T.S. Ueno of Tokyo's Nihon
University told the Ninth Congress of the International Academy of Legal and
Social Medicine, in Rome. "Moral life has become disorderly. It is an age of
free sex, and the life of the unborn is not respected. We can now say the law
is a bad one."
Japanese physicians, Dr. Ueno said, can receive a "designation" to perform
abortions after a two-year "apprenticeship." A doctor having this designation
may operate if in his judgment "the mother's health may be affected seriously
by continuation of pregnancy or delivery, from the physical or economic view-
point."
A year after the "Eugenic Protection Law" was passed, 250,000 legal abor-
tions were done, Dr. Ueno reports; last year no fewer than 1.5 million were
done.
"Abortion has become a substitute for contraception," he says. "About half
the Japanese women who have abortions admit that they did not even try to
prevent conception. Induced abortion has become so common it is almost com-
pulsory for many women ; they feel it is a part of life in Japan that can't be
helped. Some apartment house managers enforce a policy that no family in
the building may have more than two children. Pregnant mothers are often
asked by their gynecologists whether or not they intend to carry the child to
term. The entire economy has hardened around the two-child family."
Many Japanese are ashamed of having abortions, he suggested. Public opinion
surveys suggest that most Japanese women do not approve of abortion even
though they practice it. Only 18% of women surveyed said that they "did not
feel anything in particular" after their first abortion, 35% "felt sorry about
the unborn child," and 28% felt they had "done something wrong," Dr. Ueno
told the congress.
"Induced abortions are a source of easy income for doctors," he charged.
"Cash is paid, so they don't have to be paid through health insurance; many
find abortion to be a convenient source of side income."
He also charged that legal abortions are "not remarkably safer" than illegal
ones. He believes that the sudden change from pregnancy causes an imbalance
of the sympathetic nervous system and has many other ill effects. Among them :
dysmenorrhea, sterility, habitual spontaneous abortion, extrauterine pregnan-
cies, cramps, headache, vertigo, exhaustion, sleeplessness, lumbago, neuralgia,
debility and psychosomatic illness, perforation of the uterus, cervical lesions,
infections, bleeding, and retention of some tissue.
Another consequence of 25 years of abortion, according to Dr. Ueno : Japan
has 14 million people over 65 among its population of 108 million. In the next
20 years the over-65 population is expected to reach 29 million, of a total of
130 million Japanese. Because this means too many old people for the young
to support, he predicts strong pressure for euthanasia.
"Easy abortion has been a bad experience for us," he told MWN. "It is now
very difficult to control or to eradicate, despite growing criticism. It has be-
came a way of life; the law might be changed but the practice cannot be
controlled.
"The sooner Japan returns to a solid law which forbids the taking of the
life of the unborn, the better for our nation. Just as we need guard rails,
signal lights, and speed limits, so we need precise laws governing abortion.
We need such laws to save us from our individual and collective weakness,"
he concluded.
[From the Uncertified Human]
Euthanasias The Latest Threat Is on the Rise
A year and a half ago two things used to be said : that the euthanasia move-
ment would take ten years to materialize and that perhaps it never would. The
first prediction is coming true eight years too early and the second statement
is being made considerably less often.
130
PROPAGANDA BEGINNING
In the January 14, 1972 issue of Life Magazine, an article appeared outlining
the dilemma of the mother of a 1-year old mongoloid child "still unwanted and
unnamed" who cost her parents much time and expense in treatments and care.
He mother is quoted as saying : "Why, when there are too many people in the
world, keep alive an unwanted, malformed child. ... I still say if there
was a place where I could take this child and she would be put to sleep per-
manently, I would do it." The story is a very sad one. It follows two articles
on men who personally decided to discontinue agonizing treatments for terminal
diseases and so die in peace. Yet strangly, the story of the mongoloid girl was
also headed, "The Right to Die". Now really, the woman was campaigning
for the girl's death, not her own. She admitted in a subsequent letter her in-
tention to get a bill passed permitting her to put the child to sleep. Wouldn't
"right to kill" be more appropriate?
The Executive director of the fastgrowing Euthanasia Educational Fund
centered in New York State informed the editor in a recent personal letter
that
Your letter is very perceptive about the other questions which arise and
many of our members as individuals do believe in making a means of dying
available, in providing for those who cannot speak for themselves and in the
humane withdrawal of support from defective babies. However, all of these
are illegal and as an organization we do not advocate any of them.
If "providing for those who cannot speak for themselves" were legal, what
provisions might they advocate?
PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR MERCY KILLING
A Gallup Poll published in the Toronto Star for Sept. 27, 1972, indicated
that the majority of people in Canada seem to favour mercy-killing at the
patient's request. Yet, on the opposite page, there was a much-featured article
by the United Church's former moderator (for our American readerSj the
United Church of Canada is one of the bastions of lethal liberalism in this
country) concluding that the only reason we do not similarly end the lives
of those who have not requested it but whose existences have become mean-
ingless is "selfish indifference". It seems that the idea of killing at the patient's
request and killing without it when we feel justified are difficult to separate.
People are becoming particularly vocal on the question of deformed or defective
children, who are generally considered, as such, to be unwanted. Dr. Colin
Ferguson, president elect of the Canadian Paediatrics Society, addressed the
annual meeting, called for life-and-death guidelines for mongoloid children.
(Toronto Star, July 16, 1972) He said, "It is a supreme penalty to put on some
families to save the life of a mongolian idiot." He noted that a young mother
could have other normal children if the defective baby were phased out and
the total happiness would be easier for all concerned if socially acceptable
guidelines were available", he concluded. Dr. Ferguson mentioned that another
type of child also merited infanticidal consideration, those afflicted with
myelomeningoceles, results in leg paralysis and lack of bowel control. He cited
a Dr. David Morley of Britain who claims that such children cost the state
one million dollars per year. Interestingly, on August 8, 1972 a surgeon at
London's Hospital for Sick Children told the London Sun that these children
should be left to die. He believes that a more selective approach is needed with
respect to survival of the handicapped. Of course, selectivity can pose problems
too. A controversy arose recently among anaestheticians, reported in 06 Oyn
News, January 1, 1971, No. 1, p. 1 as to whether an anaesthetician should
attempt to revive an infant he had accidentally anaesthetized during the
birth process, insofar as that infant might be mentally retarded. One doctor
objected to allowing the infant to die on the grounds that, without prior knowl-
edge of the actual IQ potential of the infant, one could not gauge how much
below normal it would be if at all.
Thorp is a good deal of confusion about the meaning of the term "euthanasia".
To some, it means allowing a person to die who wants to. and to others it
means putting a person to sleep. It has been used to mean withdrawal of sup-
port without the patient's consent or putting the patient to sleep without his or
her consent.
131
THE "HONOURABLE" MAN
Chaplain Reeves at Columbia University remarks that the dilemma in his
view is basically this : there are two supreme challenges facing us all : to find
an honourable equivalent to Spartan exposure on the rocks at the beginning
of life and an honourable equivalent to the Eskimo hole in the ice at the end
of life. (Not. Observer, Mar. 4, 72) One wanders in passing just what it is
that the Reverend Reeves finds to be less than "honourable" about the Eskimo
way if the end results are the same. It is the primitive methods he objects to?
Are antiseptic hypodermics more "honourable" than the ice?
LIKE THE ABORTION CAMPAIGNS
All this bears a profund resemblance to many a successful abortion cam-
paign, a fact which may disturb those who "fear that this sort of thing may
get out of hand". Indeed it may — in fact it already is, out of hand. Let us
elaborate. In the article in Life, the emotionally wrenching plea for a very
hard case is reminiscent of the earlier pleas for abortion. "The mother whose
child will almost certainly be born deformed" drew a great deal of sympathy
for the "right to abortion". The mother whose child is born deformed is be-
ginning to draw sympathy for infanticide. It does not really matter how you
define infanticide; whether it involves "withdrawal of support" or drowning
the child in a bucket is immaterial : If you want the child to die and you make
that child die — that is infanticide.
On March 5 of this year Time Magazine reported on an even clearer case
from the Netherlands, this time it was senile euthanasia. The case was very
bad indeed, as the old mother was quite sick. Her doctor daughter put her to
sleep without her consent, and then because she was a "woman of principle"
informed the nursing home director. The police were described as failing "to
act against the popular doctor" and, prevailed upon, the public prosecutor
charged her "reluctantly". Thus the stage is set: a hard case (hasn't anyone
heard the principle that hard cases make bad laws?) a doctor of remorselessly
high ethical principles, a popular doctor at that, and a judicial group which
unwittingly makes a verdict out of its obvious unwillingness to act. By the
time the case goes to trial it is a public issue and everything about the actual
case except its emotional aura is forgotten. For one thing, someone started a
foundation for voluntary euthanasia, either forgetting or not caring that this
case was about involuntary euthanasia. A group of doctors signed an open
letter to the Minister of Justice accusing themselves of the saime crime. This is
very similar to the "abortion forums" where doctors admit to performing il-
legal abortions. The fact that the government was unwilling to bring Dr.
Postma to trial gave safety in numbers to other physicians and it soon began
to be supposed that whatever a number of physicians do must be morally right.
In other words, as soon as the government admitted that the hardness of the
case made them reluctant to try Dr. Postma on the principle, they found them-
selves having to accept the principle itself. The euthanasia foundation acquired
3,000 members in a week. The petition in support of (presumably involuntary)
euthanasia that was circulated in Dr. Postma's town got two thousand signa-
tures. The Minister of Justice pointed out the difference between active and
passive euthanasia, admitting that the latter is widely and justifiably used
in hopeless cases. Then he illustrated a common confusion in thinking by
asking rhetorically, where would active euthanasia lead? This allowed many
people to get the idea that mercy-killing would be all right as a principle
so long as it did not overstep some mythical boundary of propriety, to be
defined by the Minister of Justice perhaps, or whoever else feels qualified. No
wonder then, that so many euthanasia lobbies flourished in the utter confusion
of the case.
AN EASY EXCUSE
Dr. Postma pointed out that her mother's suffering was not "unbearable",
and said, "Her physical suffering was serious, no more. But the mental suffering
became unbearable." For some reason, euthanasia advocates, like abortion ad-
vocates, always fall back on "mental suffering". Because it admits of no particu-
lar definition or alleviation, as physical suffering does, it makes at much easier
excuse to plead at an emotional trial. Dr. Postma said that the mental suffering
"was most important to me. Now, after all these months, I am convinced I
should have done it much sooner." Should she have done it before her mother
132
started to suffer mentally? She was given one week suspended sentence and
a year's probation. Her friends handed her a single flower each in sympathy.
Her supporters considered it a defeat that she was not acquitted.
What is important about this case is only partly the suffering involved. Per-
haps Dr. Postma's mother was better off dead. What the case shows as far as
the staff of the Uncertified Human is concerned, however, is the appalling in-
ability of the courts to understand that they are dealing, not with a particular
emotional case but with a principle of whether or not we are to legislate into
existence a concept of "life without value". The Dutch judiciary did realize
that the situation "might lead" to unpleasant consequences but what they did
not see is that the situation is an unpleasant consequence in itself.
Have they forgotten so soon ?
The Ovulation Method
A study of the secretions of the vagina by two doctors from Australia, Lyn
Billings MD and John Billings MD, has finally revealed a way to truly control
our own fertility, through knowledge of how our body works. It is called the
Ovulation Method because it teaches us to know when we are ovulating. The
doctors found out that a woman's secretions give a clear indication of when she
is fertile. The cycle goes like this : the woman menstruates ; after she has
finishing menstruating there is an indefinite period during which she had no
secretions at all, called the "dry days". These are followed by several days
in which there are secretions which increase ; during this time the woman is
fertile because the secretions keep the sperm alive and conduct them upward.
She will ovulate in time for the sperm to reach the egg. The secretions become
slippery and will stretch without breaking, and then become egg-white. On this
day the woman ovulates. Counting this day as day one, the woman should
count a total of four days. For four days the egg is passing out of her body and
she is still fertile. After these four days the egg is gone and it does not matter
whether there are more secretions or not ; the woman can't get pregnant
because the egg is gone. Menstruation begins exactly 14 days after the egg-
white day, the ovulation day, for most women. This method of detection should
be tried by a woman for a month or two without intercourse until she becomes
familiar with it because the semen will confuse her at first. After that, since
the semen is different, the woman can tell the difference. The two doctors
state that women do not ovulate twice except on the same day.
Widely fluctuating periods are always a result of a variation in the number
of dry days. It is possible to detect ovulation using this method regardless of
whether the woman is regular or irregular, whether she has been pregnant
recently or is nursing and has no periods, or whether she is in the menopause.
If she finds the stringy secretions followed by the egg-white secretions, she
is ovulating.
Now this information can be used to pinpoint the time of fertility for those
who wish to abstain. They should avoid all contact between each other's gen-
itals because it is possible to become pregnant even if penetration does not
occur or even if withdrawal is practiced. The period of abstention would last
about a week. The other weeks are safe. Reliability of abstention with the
ovulation method is good. Only 1.5 pregnancies occur for 100 woman/years
compared to one pregnancy per 100 woman/years with the Pill. This informa-
tion can also be used to determine when a woman is fertile so some other form
of conception control can be used, such as condom, foam, or diaphragm. It
is not necessary to use some other from of conception control during the weeks
when the woman is not fertile. It may very well increase the reliability of other
forms of conception control because a woman will not be tempted not to use
contraception on days when she thinks she is not fertile but she really is, the
time when many accidental pregnancies occur. In the doctors' studies failure
of the ovulation method was traced to a failure to use the method properly,
i.e. to distrust its evidence and act contrary to it. The ovulation method can
he used with any form of conception control except the Pill because the Pill
changes the secretions and suppresses ovulation. A woman can learn to use it
while wearing an IT T D in preparation for having it removed so that she can
control her own fertility rather than depending on a doctor to be willing to
do it for her. Tt is excellent for women's self-help clinics to teach. It will not
make pharmaceutical houses rich and can be used in the absence of technology.
133
The two doctors recommend that women teach £ach other how to use it. It is
easy to use and will work for the poor. It will not mess up your body ecology.
The only disadvantage I can find to it is that you cannot get pregnant "acci-
dentally" anymore. You know when you are fertile even when you don't want
to know.
The ovulation method can be used for several other things. If you want to
get pregnant and are having trouble it can pinpoint ovulation for you. If you
want to try for a baby girl or boy it will tell you when to have sex and when
to abstain to increase the chances of having a child of the sex you want. The
method of sex selection described on the reverse side is 85% reliable.
134
LEO ALEXANDER
Medical Science
Under Dictatorship
From Child and Family, Vol. 10, No. 1, 1971
SCIENCE UNDER dictatorship be-
comes subordinated to the guiding
philosophy of the dictatorship. Irre-
spective of other ideologic trappings,
the guiding philosophic principle of
recent dictatorships, including that
of the Nazis, has been Hegelian in
that what has been considered "ra-
tional utility" and corresponding
doctrine and planning has replaced
moral, ethical and religious values.
Nazi propaganda was highly effec-
tive in perverting public opinion and
public conscience, in a remarkably
short time. In the medical profes-
sion this expressed itself in a rapid
decline in standards of professional
ethics. Medical science in Nazi Ger-
many collaborated with this Hege-
lian trend particularly in the follow-
ing enterprises: the mass extermi-
nation of the chronically sick in the
interest of saving "useless" ex-
penses to the community as a whole ;
the mass extermination of those
considered socially disturbing or
racially and ideologically unwanted;
the individual, inconspicuous exter-
mination of those considered dis-
loyal within the ruling group; and
the ruthless use of "human experi-
mental material" for medicomilitary
research.
This paper discusses the origins
of these activities, as well as their
consequences upon the body social,
and the motivation of those partici-
pating in them.
Preparatory propaganda
Even before the Nazis took open
charge in Germany, a propaganda
barrage was directed against the
traditional compassionate nineteenth
century attitudes toward the chron-
ically ill, and for the adoption of
a utilitarian, Hegelian point of
view. Sterilization and euthanasia
of persons with chronic mental ill-
nesses was discussed at a meeting of
Bavarian psychiatrists in 1931. 1 By
1936 extermination of the physically
or socially unfit was so openly ac-
cepted that its practice was men-
tioned incidentally in an article pub-
lished in an official German medical
journal. 2
Lay opinion was not neglected in
this campaign. Adults were propa-
gandized by motion pictures, one of
which, entitled "I Accuse," deals en-
tirely with euthanasia. This film de-
picts the life history of a woman
suffering from multiple sclerosis;
in it her husband, a doctor, finally
135
kills her to the accompaniment of
soft piano music rendered by a sym-
pathetic colleague in an adjoining
room. Acceptance of this ideology
was implanted even in the children.
A widely used high school mathe-
matics text, Mathematics in the
Service of National Political Educa-
tion, 3 includes problems stated in
distorted terms of the cost of caring
for and rehabilitating the chronical-
ly sick and crippled. One of the
problems asked, for instance, how
many new housing units could be
built and how many marriage-allow-
ance loans could be given to newly
wedded couples for the amount of
money it cost the state to care for
"the crippled, the criminal and the
insane."
Euthanasia
The first direct order for euthana-
sia was issued by Hitler on Septem-
ber 1, 1939, and an organization was
set up to execute the program. Dr.
Karl Brandt headed the medical sec-
tion, and Phillip Bouhler the admin-
istrative section. All state institu-
tions were required to report on pa-
tients who had been ill five years
or more and who were unable to
work, by filling out questionnaires
giving name, race, marital status,
nationality, next of kin, whether
regularly visited and by whom, who
bore financial responsibility and so
forth. The decision regarding which
patients should be killed was made
entirely on the basis of this brief
DR. ALEXANDER is Assistant Clini-
cal Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts Uni-
versity Medical School, Boston.
information by expert consultants,
most of whom were professors of
psychiatry in the key universities.
These consultants never saw the
patients themselves. The thorough-
ness of their scrutiny can be ap-
praised by the work of one expert,
who between November 14 and De-
cember 1, 1940, evaluated 2109 ques-
tionnaires.
These questionnaires were col-
lected by a "Realm's Work Commit-
tee of Institutions for Cure and
Care." 4 A parallel organization de-
voted exclusively to the killing of
children was known by the similarly
euphemistic name of "Realm's Com-
mittee for Scientific Approach to
Severe Illness Due to Heredity
and Constitution." The "Charitable
Transport Company for the Sick"
transported patients to the killing
centers, and the "Charitable Foun-
dation for Institutional Care" was in
charge of collecting the cost of the
killings from the relatives, without,
however, informing them what the
charges were for; in the death
certificates the cause of death was
falsified.
What these activities meant to the
population at large was well ex-
pressed by a few hardy souls who
dared to protest. A member of the
court of appeals at Frankfurt-am-
Main wrote in December, 1939 :
There is constant discussion of
the question of the destruction of
socially unfit life — in the places
where there are mental institu-
tions, in neighboring towns,
sometimes over a large area,
throughout the Rhineland, for
136
example. The people have come
to recognize the vehicles in which
the patients are taken from their
original institution to the inter-
mediate institution and from
there to the liquidation institu-
tion. I am told that when they
see these buses even the children
call out: 'They're taking some
more people to be gassed.' From
Limburg it is reported that every
day from one to three buses with
shades drawn pass through on the
way from Weilmunster to Hada-
mar, delivering inmates to the
liquidation institution there. Ac-
cording to the stories the arrivals
are immediately stripped to the
skin, dressed in paper shirts, and
forthwith taken to a gas chamber,
where they are liquidated with
hydrocyanic acid gas and an
added anesthetic. The bodies are
reported to be moved to a com-
bustion chamber by means of a
conveyor belt, six bodies to a
furnace. The resulting ashes are
then distributed into six urns
which are shipped to the families.
The heavy smoke from the crema-
tory building is said to be visible
over Hadamar every day. There
is talk, furthermore, that in some
cases heads and other portions of
the body are removed for anatom-
ical examination. The people
working at this liquidation job
in the institutions are said to be
assigned from other areas and
are shunned completely by the
populace. This personnel is de-
scribed as frequenting the bars
at night and drinking heavily.
Quite apart from these overt in-
cidents that exercise the imagina-
tion of the people, they are dis-
quieted by the question of wheth-
er old folk who have worked hard
all their lives and may merely
have come into their dotage are
also being liquidated. There is
talk that the homes for the aged
are to be cleaned out too. The
people are said to be waiting for
legislative regulation providing
some orderly method that will in-
sure especially that the aged
feebleminded are not included in
the program.
Here one sees what "euthanasia"
means in actual practice. According
to the records, 275,000 people were
put to death in these killing cen-
ters. Ghastly as this seems, it
should be realized that this program
was merely the entering wedge for
exterminations of far greater scope
in the political program for genocide
of conquered nations and the racially
unwanted. The methods used and
personnel trained in the killing cen-
ters for the chronically sick became
the nucleus of the much larger cen-
ters in the East, where the plan was
to kill all Jews and Poles and to cut
down the Russian population by
30,000,000.
The original program developed
by Nazi hotheads included also the
genocide of the English, with the
provision that the English males
were to be used as laborers in the
vacated territories in the East, there
to be worked to death, whereas the
English females were to be brought
into Germany to improve the quali-
ties of the German race. (This was
137
indeed a peculiar admission on the
part of the German eugenists.)
In Germany the exterminations
included the mentally defective, psy-
chotics (particularly schizophrenics),
epileptics and patients suffering
from infirmities of old age and from
various organic neurologic disorders
such as infantile paralysis, Parkin-
sonism, multiple sclerosis and brain
tumors. The technical arrangements,
methods and training of the killer
personnel were under the direction
of a committee of physicians and
other experts headed by Dr. Karl
Brandt. The mass killings were first
carried out with carbon monoxide
gas, but later cyanide gas ("cyclon
B") was found to be more effective.
The idea of camouflaging the gas
chambers as shower baths was de-
veloped by Brack, who testified be-
fore Judge Sebring that the patients
walked in calmly, deposited their
towels and stood with their little
pieces of soap under the shower out-
lets, waiting for the water to start
running. This statement was ample
rebuttal of his claim that onlv the
most severely regressed patients
among the mentally sick and only
the moribund ones among the physi-
cally sick were exterminated. In
truth, all those unable to work and
considered nonrehabilitable were
killed.
All but their squeal was utilized.
However, the program grew so big
that even scientists who hoped to
benefit from the treasure of material
supplied by this totalitarian method
wpre disannointed. A neuropatho T o-
gist. Dr. Hallervorden, who had ob-
tained 500 brains from the killing
centers for the insane, gave me a
vivid firsthand account. 5 The Char-
itable Transport Company for the
Sick brought the brains in batches
of 150 to 250 at a time. Hallervor-
den stated:
There was wonderful material
among those brains, beautiful
mental defectives, malformations
and early infantile diseases. I
accepted those brains of course.
Where they came from and how
they came to me was really none
of my business.
In addition to the material he
wanted, all kinds of other cases were
mixed in, such as patients suffering
from various types of Parkinsonism,
simple depressions, involutional de-
pressions and brain tumors, and all
kinds of other illnesses, including
psychopathy that had been difficult
to handle:
These were selected from the
various wards of the institutions
according to an excessively simple
and quick method. Most institu-
tions did not have enough physi-
cians, and what physicians there
were were either too busy or did
not care, and they delegated the
selection to the nurses and attend-
ants. Whoever looked sick or was
otherwise a probVm was put on a
list and was transported to the
killing center. The worst thing 1
about this business was that it
produced a certain brutalization
of the nursing personnel. They
got to simplv picking out those
whom they did not like, and the
138
doctors had so many patients that
they did not even know them, and
put their names on the list.
Of the patients thus killed, only the
brains were sent to Dr. Hallervor-
den ; they were killed in such large
numbers that autopsies of the bodies
were not feasible. That, in Dr. Hal-
lervorden's opinion, greatly reduced
the scientific value of the material.
The brains, however, were always
well fixed and suspended in formalin,
exactly according to his instructions.
He thinks that the cause of psychi-
atry was permanently injured by
these activities, and that psychia-
trists have lost the respect of the
German people forever. Dr. Haller-
vorden concluded: "Still, there were
interesting cases in this material."
In general only previously hos-
pitalized patients were exterminated
for reasons of illness. An exception
is a program carried out in a north-
western district of Poland, the
"Warthegau," where a health sur-
vey of the entire population was
made by an "S.S. X-Ray Battalion"
headed by Professor Hohlfelder,
radiologist of the University of
Frankfurt-am-Main. Persons found
to be infected with tuberculosis
were carted off to special extermina-
tion centers.
It is rather significant that the
German people were considered by
their Nazi leaders more ready to ac-
cept the exterminations of the sick
than those for political reasons. It
was for that reason that the first
exterminations of the latter group
were carried out under the guise of
sickness. So-called "psychiatric ex-
perts" were dispatched to survey the
inmates of camps with the specific
order to pick out members of racial
minorities and political offenders
from occupied territories and to dis-
patch them to killing centers with
specially made diagnoses such as
that of "inveterate German hater"
applied to a number of prisoners who
had been active in the Czech under-
ground.
Certain classes of patients with
mental diseases who were capable of
performing labor, particularly mem-
bers of the armed forces suffering
from psychopathy or neurosis, were
sent to concentration camps to be
worked to death, or to be reassigned
to punishment battalions and to be
exterminated in the process of re-
moval of mine fields. 6
A large number of those marked
for death for political or racial rea-
sons were made available for "medi-
cal" experiments involving the use
of involuntary human subjects. From
1942 on, such experiments carried
out in concentration camps were
openly presented at medical meet-
ings. This program included "termi-
nal human experiments," a term in-
troduced by Dr. Rascher to denote
an experiment so designed that its
successful conclusion depended upon
the test person's being put to death.
The science of annihilation
A large part of this research was
devoted to the science of destroying
and preventing life, for which I have
proposed the term "ktenology," the
science of killing. 7 - 9 In the course
of this ktenologic research, methods
139
of mass killing and mass steriliza-
tion were investigated and developed
for use against non-German peoples
or Germans who were considered
useless.
Sterilization methods were widely
investigated, but proved impractical
in experiments conducted in concen-
tration camps. A rapid method de-
veloped for sterilization of females,
which could be accomplished in the
course of a regular health examina-
tion, was the intrauterine injection
of various chemicals. Numerous
mixtures were tried, some with
iodopine and others containing bari-
um; another was most likely silver
nitrate with iodized oil, because the
result could be ascertained by X-ray
examination. The injections were
extremely painful, and a number of
women died in the course of the
experiments. Professor Karl Clau-
berg reported that he had developed
a method at the Auschwitz concen-
tration camp by which he could
sterilize 1000 women in one day.
Another method of sterilization,
or rather castration, was proposed
by Viktor Brack especially for con-
quered populations. His idea was
that X-ray machinery could be built
into desks at which the people would
have to sit, ostensibly to fill out a
questionnaire requiring five min-
utes ; they would be sterilized with-
out being aware of it. This method
failed because experiments carried
out on 100 male prisoners brought
out the fact that severe X-ray burns
were produced on all subjects. In
the course of this research, which
was carried out by Dr. Horst Schu-
man, the testicles of the victims
were removed for histologic exami-
nation two weeks later. I myself
examined four castrated survivors
of this ghastly experiment. Three
had extensive necrosis of the skin
near the genitalia, and the other an
extensive necrosis of the urethra.
Other experiments in sterilization
used an extract of the plant Caladi-
um seguinum, which had been shown
in animal studies by Madaus and
his co-workers 10 X1 to cause selective
necrosis of the germinal cells of the
testicles as well as the ovary.
The development of methods for
rapid and inconspicuous individual
execution was the objective of an-
other large part of the ktenologic
research. These methods were to be
applied to members of the ruling
group, including the SS itself, who
were suspected of disloyalty. This,
of course, is an essential require-
ment in a dictatorship, in which
"cutthroat competition" becomes a
grim reality, and any hint of faint-
heartedness or lack of enthusiasm
for the methods of totalitarian rule
is considered a threat to the entire
group.
Poisons were the subject of many
of these experiments. A research
team at the Buchenwald concentra-
tion camp, consisting of Drs. Joa-
chim Mrugowsky, Erwin Ding-Schu-
ler and Waldemar Hoven, developed
the most widely used means of in-
dividual execution under the guise
of medical treatment — namely, the
intravenous injection of phenol or
gasoline. Several alkaloids were also
investigated, among them aconitine,
which was used by Dr. Hoven to kill
several imprisoned former fellow SS
140
men who were potential witnesses
against the camp commander, Koch,
then under investigation by the
SS. At the Dachau concentration
camp Dr. Rascher developed the
standard cyanide capsules, which
could be easily bitten through, either
deliberately or accidentally, if mixed
with certain foods, and which, ironi-
cally enough, later became the means
with which Himmler and Goering
killed themselves. In connection with
these poison experiments there is an
interesting incident of characteristic
sociologic significance. When Dr.
Hoven was under trial by the SS
the investigating SS judge, Dr. Mor-
gen, proved Hoven's guilt by feeding
the poison found in Dr. Hoven's
possession to a number of Russian
prisoners of war; these men died
with the same symptoms as the SS
men murdered by Dr. Hoven. This
worthy judge was rather proud of
this efficient method of proving Dr.
Hoven's guilt and appeared entirely
unaware of the fact that in the
process he had committed murder
himself.
Poisons, however, proved too ob-
vious or detectable to be used for the
elimination of high-ranking Nazi
party personnel who had come into
disfavor, or of prominent prisoners
whose deaths should appear to stem
from natural causes. Phenol or gaso-
line, for instance, left a telltale odor
with the corpse. For this reason a
number of more subtle methods were
devised. One of these was artificial
production of septicemia. An intra-
muscular injection of 1 cc. of pus,
containing numerous chains of
;>tococci, was the first step. The
site of injection was usually the in-
side of the thigh, close to the adduc-
tor canal. When an abscess formed
it was tapped, and 3 cc. of the
creamy pus removed was injected
intravenously into the patient's op-
posite arm. If the patient then died
from septicemia, the autopsy proved
that death was caused by the same
organism that had caused the ab-
scess. These experiments were car-
ried out in many concentration
camps. At the Dachau camp the
subjects were almost exclusively
Polish Catholic priests. However,
since this method did not always
cause death, sometimes resulting
merely in a local abscess, it was con-
sidered inefficient, and research was
continued with other means but
along the same lines.
The final triumph on the part of
ktenologic research aimed at finding
a method of inconspicuous execution
that would produce autopsy findings
indicative of death from natural
causes was the development of re-
peated intravenous injections of
suspensions of live tubercle bacilli,
which brought on acute miliary tu-
berculosis within a few weeks. This
method was produced by Professor
Dr. Heissmeyer, who was one of Dr
Gebhardt's associates at the SS hos-
pital of Hohenlychen. As a means
of further camouflage, so that the
SS at large would not suspect the
purpose of these experiments, the
preliminary tests for the efficacy of
this method were performed exclu-
sively on children imprisoned in the
Neuengamme concentration camp.
For use in "medical" executions
of prisoners and of members of the
141
SS and other branches of the Ger-
man armed forces the use of simple
lethal injections, particularly phenol
injections, remained the instrument
of choice. Whatever methods he
used, the physician gradually became
the unofficial executioner, for the
sake of convenience, informality and
relative secrecy. Even on German
submarines it was the physician's
duty to execute the troublemakers
among the crew by lethal injections.
Medical science has for some time
been an instrument of military pow-
er in that it preserved the health
and fighting efficiency of troops.
This essentially defensive purpose is
not inconsistent with the ethical
principles of medicine. In World
War I the German empire had en-
listed medical science as an instru-
ment of aggressive military power
by putting it to use in the develop-
ment of gas warfare. It was left to
the Nazi dictatorship to make medi-
cal science into an instrument of
political power — a formidable, essen-
tial tool in the complete and effective
manipulation of totalitarian control.
This should be a warning to all civil-
ized nations, and particularly to in-
dividuals who are blinded by the
"efficiency" of a totalitarian rule,
under whatever name.
This entire body of research as
reported so far served the master
crime to which the Nazi dictatorship
was committed — namely, the geno-
cide of non-German peoples and the
elimination by killing, in groups or
singly, of Germans who were con-
sidered useless or disloyal. In effect-
ing the two parts of this program,
Himmler demanded and received the
cooperation of physicians and of
German medical science. The result
was a significant advance in the
science of killing, or ktenology.
Medicomilitary research
Another chapter in Nazi scientific
research was that aimed to aid the
military forces. Many of these ideas
originated with Himmler, who fan-
cied himself a scientist.
When Himmler learned that the
cause of death of most SS men on
the battlefield was hemorrhage, he
instructed Dr. Sigmund Rascher to
search for a blood coagulant that
might be given before the men went
into action. Rascher tested this
coagulant when it was developed
by clocking the number of drops
emanating from freshly cut amputa-
tion stumps of living and conscious
prisoners at the crematorium of
Dachau concentration camp and by
shooting Russian prisoners of war
through the spleen.
Live dissections were a feature of
another experimental study designed
to show the effects of explosive de-
compression. 12-14 A mobile decom-
pression chamber was used. It was
found that when subjects were made
to descend from altitudes of 40,000
to 60,000 feet without oxygen, se-
vere symptoms of cerebral dysfunc-
tion occurred — at first convulsions,
then unconsciousness in which the
body was hanging limp and later,
after wakening, temporary blind-
ness, paralysis or severe confu-
sional twilight states. Rascher, who
wanted to find out whether these
symptoms were due to anoxic
changes or to other causes, did what
142
appeared to him the most simple
thing: he placed the subjects of the
experiment under water and dis-
sected them while the heart was still
beating, demonstrating air embolism
in the blood vessels of the heart,
liver, chest wall and brain.
Another part of Dr. Rascher's re-
search, carried out in collaboration
with Holzloehner and Finke, con-
cerned shock from exposure to cold. 15
It was known that military person-
nel generally did not survive immer-
sion in the North Sea for more than
sixty to a hundred minutes. Rascher
therefore attempted to duplicate
these conditions at Dachau concen-
tration camp and used about 300
prisoners in experiments on shock
from exposure to cold; of these 80
or 90 were killed. (The figures do
not include persons killed during
mass experiments on exposure to
cold outdoors.) In one report on
this work Rascher asked permission
to shift these experiments from
Dachau to Auschwitz, a larger camp
where they might cause less disturb-
ance because the subjects shrieked
from pain when their extremities
froze white. The results, like so
many of those obtained in the Nazi
research program, are not depend-
able. In his report Rascher stated
that it took from fifty-three to a
hundred minutes to kill a human
being by immersion in ice water — a
time closely in agreement with the
known survival period in the North
Sea. Inspection of his own experi-
mental records and statements made
to me by his close associates showed
that it actually took from eighty
minutes to five or six hours to kill
an undressed person in such a man-
ner, whereas a man in full aviator's
dress took six or seven hours to kill.
Obviously, Rascher dressed up his
findings to forestall criticism, al-
though any scientific man should
have known that during actual ex-
posure many other factors, includ-
ing greater convection of heat due to
the motion of water, would affect the
time of survival.
Another series of experiments
gave results that might have been
an important medical contribution if
an important lead had not been
ignored. The efficacy of various vac-
cines and drugs against typhus was
tested at the Buchenwald and Natz-
weiler concentration camps. Pre-
vaccinated persons and non-vacci-
nated controls were injected with
live typhus rickettsias, and the death
rates of the two series compared.
After a certain number of passages,
the Matelska strain of typhus ric-
kettsia proved to become avirulent
for man. Instead of seizing upon
this as a possibility to develop a live
vaccine, the experimenters, includ-
ing the chief consultant, Professor
Gerhard Rose, who should have
known better, were merely annoyed
at the fact that the controls did not
die either, discarded this strain and
continued testing their relatively in-
effective dead vaccines against a new
virulent strain. This incident shows
that the basic unconscious motiva-
tion and attitude has a great influ-
ence in determining the scientist's
awareness of the phenomena that
pass through his vision.
Sometimes human subjects were
used for tests that were totally un-
143
necessary, or whose results could
have been predicted by simple chemi-
cal experiments. For example, 90
gypsies were given unaltered sea
water and sea water whose taste
was camouflaged as their sole source
of fluid, apparently to test the well-
known fact that such hypertonic
saline solutions given as the only
source of supply of fluid will cause
severe physical disturbance or death
within six to twelve days. These
persons were subjected to the tor-
tures of the damned, with death re-
sulting in at least two cases.
Heteroplastic transplantation ex-
periments were carried out by Pro-
fessor Dr. Karl Gebhardt at Himm-
ler's suggestion. Whole limbs —
shoulder, arm or leg — were ampu-
tated from live prisoners at Ravens-
brueck concentration camp, wrapped
in sterile moist dressings and sent
by automobile to the SS hospital at
Hohenlychen, where Professor Geb-
hardt busied himself with a futile
attempt at heteroplastic transplanta-
tion. In the meantime the prisoners
deprived of a limb were usually
killed by lethal injection.
One would not be dealing with
German science if one did not run
into manifestations of the collector's
spirit. By February, 1942, it was
assumed in German scientific circles
that the Jewish race was about to
be completely exterminated, and
alarm was expressed over the fact
that only very few specimens of
skulls and skeletons of Jews were at
the disposal of science. It was there-
fore proposed that a collection of
150 bodv casts and skeletons of Jews
be preserved for perusal by future
students of anthropology. Dr. Au-
gust Hirt, professor of anatomy at
the University of Strassburg, de-
clared himself interested in estab-
lishing such a collection at his ana-
tomic institute. He suggested that
captured Jewish officers of the Rus-
sian armed forces be included, as
well as females from Auschwitz con-
centration camp; that they be
brought alive to Natzweiler concen-
tration camp near Strassburg; and
that after "their subsequently in-
duced death — care should be taken
that the heads not be damaged
[sic]" the bodies be turned over to
him at the anatomic institute of the
University of Strassburg. This was
done. The entire collection of bodies
and the correspondence pertaining
to it fell into the hands of the
United States Army.
One of the most revolting experi-
ments was the testing of sulfona-
mides against gas gangrene by Pro-
fessor Gebhardt and his collabora-
tors, for which young women cap-
tured from the Polish Resistance
Movement served as subjects. Ne-
crosis was produced in a muscle of
the leg by ligation and the wound
was infected with various types of
gas-gangrene bacilli ; frequently,
dirt, pieces of wood and glass splint-
ers were added to the wound. Some
of these victims died, and others
sustained severe mutilating deformi-
ties of the leg.
Motivation
An important feature of the ex-
periments performed in concentra-
tion camps is the fact that they not
only represented a ruthless and cal-
144
lous pursuit of legitimate scientific
goals but also were motivated by
rather sinister practical ulterior
political and personal purposes, aris-
ing out of the requirements and
problems of the administration of
totalitarian rule.
Why did men like professor Geb-
hardt lend themselves to such ex-
periments? The reasons are fairly
simple and practical, no surprise to
anyone familiar with the evidence
of fear, hostility, suspicion, rivalry
and intrigue, the fratricidal struggle
euphemistically termed the "self-
selection of leaders," that went on
within the ranks of the ruling Nazi
party and the SS. The answer was
fairly simple and logical. Dr. Geb-
hardt performed these experiments
to clear himself of the suspicion that
he had been contributing to the
death of SS General Reinhard ("The
Hangman") Heydrich, either neg-
ligently or deliberately, by failing to
treat his wound infection with sul-
fonamides. After Heydrich died
from gas gangrene, Himmler him-
self told Dr. Gebhardt that the only
way in which he could prove that
Heydrich's death was "fate deter-
mined" was by carrying out a
"large-scale experiment" in prison-
ers, which would prove or disprove
that people died from gas gangrene
irrespective of whether they were
treated with sulfonamides or not.
Dr. Sigmund Rascher did not be-
come the notorious vivisectionist of
Dachau concentration camp and the
willing tool of Himmler's research
interests until he had been forbid-
den to use the facilities of the Path-
ological Institute of the Universitv
of Munich because he was suspected
of having Communist sympathies.
Then he was ready to go all out and
to do anything merely to regain ac-
ceptance by the Nazi party and the
SS.
These cases illustrated a method
consciously and methodically used in
the SS, an age-old method used by
criminal gangs everywhere : that of
making suspects of disloyalty clear
themselves by participation in a
crime that would definitely and ir-
revocably tie them to the organiza-
tion. In the SS this process of rein-
forcement of group cohesion was
called "Blutkitt" (blood-cement), a
term that Hitler himself is said to
have obtained from a book on Gen-
ghis Khan in which this technic
was emphasized.
The important lesson here is that
this motivation, with which one is
familiar in ordinary crimes, applies
also to war crimes and to ideologi-
cally conditioned crimes against hu-
manity — namely, that fear and cow-
ardice, especially fear of punishment
or of ostracism by the group, are
often more important motives than
simple ferocity or aggressiveness.
The early change in
medical attitudes
Whatever proportions these crimes
finally assumed, it became evident to
all who investigated them that they
had started from small beginnings.
The beginnings at first were merely
a subtle shift in emphasis in the
basic attitude of the physicians. It
started with the acceptance of the
attitude, basic in the euthanasia
145
movement, that there is such a thing
as life not worthy to be lived. This
attitude in its early stages con-
cerned itself merely with the severe-
ly and chronically sick. Gradually
the sphere of those to be included
in this category was enlarged to
encompass the socially unproduc-
tive, the ideologically unwanted, the
racially unwanted and finally all
non-Germans. But it is important
to realize that the infinitely small
wedged-in lever from which this en-
tire trend of mind received its im-
petus was the attitude toward the
nonrehabilitable sick.
It is, therefore, this subtle shift
in emphasis of the physicians' atti-
tude that one must thoroughly in-
vestigate. It is a recent significant
trend in medicine, including psychia-
try, to regard prevention as more im-
portant than cure. Observation and
recognition of early signs and symp-
toms have become the basis for pre-
vention of further advance of dis-
ease. 8
In looking for these early signs
one may well retrace the early steps
of propaganda on the part of the
Nazis in Germany as well as in the
countries that they overran and in
which they attempted to gain sup-
porters by means of indoctrination,
seduction and propaganda.
The example of successful
resistance by the
physicians of the Netherlands
There is no doubt that in Ger-
many itself the first and most effec-
tive step of propaganda within the
medical profession was the propa-
ganda barrage against the useless,
incurably sick described above. Sim-
ilar, even more subtle efforts were
made in some of the occupied coun-
tries. It is to the everlasting honor
of the medical profession of Holland
that they recognized the earliest and
most subtle phases of this attempt
and rejected it. When Seiss-Inquart,
Reich Commissar for the Occupied
Netherlands Territories, wanted to
draw the Dutch physicians into the
orbit of the activities of the German
medical profession, he did not tell
them "You must send your chronic
patients to death factories" or "You
must give lethal injections at Gov-
ernment request in your offices," but
he couched his order in most careful
and superficially acceptable terms.
One of the paragraphs in the order
of the Reich Commissar of the Neth-
erlands Territories concerning the
Netherlands doctors of 19 December
1941 reads as follows:
It is the duty of the doctor,
through advice and effort, con-
scientiously and to his best abil-
ity, to assist as helper the person
entrusted to his care in the main-
tenance, improvement, and re-es-
tablishment of his vitality, physi-
cal efficiency and health. The ac-
complishment of this duty is a
public task." 16
The physicians of Holland rejected
this order unanimously because they
saw what it actually meant — namely,
the concentration of their efforts on
mere rehabilitation of the sick for
useful labor, and abolition of medi-
cal secrecy. Although on the sur-
face the new order appeared not too
146
grossly unacceptable, the Dutch phy-
sicians decided that it is the first,
although slight, step away from
principle that is the most important
one. The Dutch physicians declared
that they would not obey this order.
When Seiss-Inquart threatened them
with revocation of their licenses,
they returned their licenses, re-
moved their shingles and, while see-
ing their own patients secretly, no
longer wrote death or birth certifi-
cates. Seiss-Inquart retraced his
steps and tried to cajole them — still
to no effect. Then he arrested 100
Dutch physicians and sent them to
concentration camps. The medical
profession remained adamant and
quietly took care of their widows
and orphans, but would not give in.
Thus it came about that not a single
euthanasia or non-therapeutic steril-
ization was recommended or partici-
pated in by any Dutch physician.
They had the foresight to resist be-
fore the first step was taken, and
they acted unanimously and won out
in the end. It is obvious that if the
medical profession of a small nation
under the conqueror's heel could
resist so effectively the German med-
ical profession could likewise have
resisted had they not taken the fatal
first step. It is the first seemingly
innocent step away from principle
that frequently decides a career of
crime. Corrosion begins in micro-
scopic proportions.
The situation in the
United States
The question that this fact
prompts is whether there are any
danger signs that American physi-
cians have also been infected with
Hegelian, cold-blooded, utilitarian
philosophy and whether early traces
of it can be detected in their medi-
cal thinking that may make them
vulnerable to departures of the type
that occurred in Germany. Basic
attitudes must be examined dispas-
sionately. The original concept of
medicine and nursing was not based
on any rational or feasible likelihood
that they could actually cure and
restore but rather on an essentially
maternal or religious idea. The Good
Samaritan had no thought of nor
did he actually care whether he
could restore working capacity. He
was merely motivated by the com-
passion in alleviating suffering. Ber-
nal 17 states that prior to the advent
of scientific medicine, the physician's
main function was to give hope to
the patient and to relieve his rela-
tives of responsibility. Gradually, in
all civilized countries, medicine has
moved away from this position,
strangely enough in direct propor-
tion to man's actual ability to per-
form feats that would have been
plain miracles in days of old. How-
ever, with this increased efficiency
based on scientific development went
a subtle change in attitude. Physi-
cians have become dangerously close
to being mere technicians of reha-
bilitation. This essentially Hegelian
rational attitude has led them to
make certain distinctions in the
handling- of acute and chronic dis-
eases. The patient with the latter
carries an obvious stigma as the
one less likely to be fully rehabili-
tate for social usefulness. In an
147
increasingly utilitarian society these
patients are being looked down upon
with increasing definiteness as un-
wanted ballast. A certain amount
of rather open contempt for the peo-
ple who cannot be rehabilitated with
present knowledge has developed.
This is probably due to a good deal
of unconscious hostility, because
these people for whom there seem to
to be no effective remedies have be-
come a threat to newly acquired de-
lusions of omnipotence.
Hospitals like to limit themselves
to the care of patients who can be
fully rehabilitated, and the patient
whose full rehabilitation is unlikely
finds himself, at least in the best
and most advanced centers of heal-
ing, as a second-class patient faced
with a reluctance on the part of
both the visiting and the house staff
to suggest and apply therapeutic
procedures that are not likely to
bring about immediately striking re-
sults in terms of recovery. I wish
to emphasize that this point of view
did not arise primarily within the
medical profession which has always
been outstanding in a highly com-
petitive economic society for giving
freely and unstintingly of its time
and efforts, but was imposed by the
shortage of funds available, both
private and public. From the atti-
tude of easing patients with chronic
diseases away from the doors of the
best types of treatment facilities
available to the actual dispatching
of such patients to killing centers is
a long but nevertheless logical step.
Resources for the so-called incurable
patient have recently become prac-
tically unavailable.
There has never in history been a
shortage of money for the develop-
ment and manufacture of weapons
of war ; there is and should be none
now. The disproportion of monetary
support for war and that available
for healing and care is an anachron-
ism in an era that has been de-
scribed as the "enlightened age of
the common man" by some observ-
ers. The comparable cost of jet
planes and hospital beds is too ob-
vious for any excuse to be found
for a shortage of the latter. I trust
that these remarks will not be mis-
understood. I believe that armament,
including jet planes, is vital for the
security of the republic, but ade-
quate maintenance of standards of
health and alleviation of suffering
are equally vital, both from a prac-
tical point of view and from that of
morale. All who took part in induc-
tion-board examinations during the
war realize that the maintenance
and development of national health
is of as vital importance as the
maintenance and development of
armament.
The trend of development in the
facilities available for the chronical-
ly ill outlined above will not neces-
sarily be altered by public or state
medicine. With provision of public
funds in any setting of public ac-
tivity the question is bound to come
up, "Is it worth while to spend a
certain amount of effort to restore a
certain type of patient?" This ra-
tionalistic point of view has insidi-
ouslv crept into the motivation of
medical effort, supplanting the old
Hippocratic point of view. In emer-
gency situations, military or other-
148
wise, such grading of effort may be
pardonable. But doctors must be-
ware lest such attitudes creep into
the civilian public administration of
medicine entirely outside emergency
situations, because once such con-
siderations are at all admitted, the
more often and the more definitely
the question is going to be asked,
"Is it worth while to do this or that
for this type of patient?" Evidence
of the existence of such an attitude
stared at me from a report on the
activities of a leading public hospital
unit, which stated rather proudly
that certain treatments were given
only when they appeared promising :
Our facilities are such that a
case load of 20 patients is regu-
larly carried ... in selecting cases
for treatment careful considera-
tion is given to the prognostic
criteria, and in no instance have
we instituted treatment merely to
satisfy relatives or our own con-
sciences.
If only those whose treatment is
worthwhile in terms of prognosis
are to be treated, what about the
other ones? The doubtful patients
are the ones whose recovery appears
unlikely, but frequently if treated
ally, they surprise the best
prognoeticators. And what shall be
during that long time lag after
the disease has been called incurable
and the tinir of (hath and autopsy?
thai period during which it is
most difficult to find hospitals and
other therapeutic organizations for
the wdfarc ;md alleviation of suffer-
ing of the patient.
Under all forms of dictatorship
the dictating bodies or individuals
claim that all that is done is being
done for the best of the people as a
whole, and that for that reason they
look at health merely in terms of
utility, efficiency and productivity.
It is natural in such a setting that
eventually Hegel's principle that
"what is useful is good" wins out
completely. The killing center is the
reductio ad absurdum of all health
planning based only on rational prin-
ciples and economy and not on hu-
mane compassion and divine law. To
be sure, American physicians are
still far from the point of thinking
of killing centers, but they have ar-
rived at a danger point in thinking,
at which likelihood of full rehabili-
tation is considered a factor that
should determine the amount of
time, effort and cost to be devoted to
a particular type of patient on the
part of the social body upon which
this decision rests. At this point
Americans should remember that the
enormity of a euthanasia move-
ment is present in their own midst.
To the psychiatrist it is obvious that
this represents the eruption of un-
conscious aggression on the part of
certain administrators alluded to
above, as well as on the part of rela-
tives who have been understandably
frustrated by the tragedy of illness
in its close interaction unon their
own lives. The hostility of a father
erupting against his feebleminded
son is understandable and should
be considered from the psvchiatric
point of view, but it certainly should
not influence social thinking. The
development of effective analgesics
149
and pain-relieving operations has
taken even the last rationalization
laway from the supporters of eutha-
masia.
The case, therefore, that I should
like to make is that American medi-
cine must realize where it stands in
its fundamental premises. There can
be no doubt that in a subtle way the
Hegelian premise of "what is useful
is right" has infected society, includ-
ing the medical portion. Physi-
cians must return to the older
premises, which were the emotional
foundation and driving force of an
amazingly successful quest to in-
crease powers of healing and which
are bound to carry them still farther
if they are not held down to earth
by the pernicious attitudes of an
overdone practical realism.
What occurred in Germany may
have been the inexorable historic
progression that the Greek histor-
ians have described as the law of the
fall of civilizations and that Toyn-
bee 18 has convincingly confirmed —
namely, that there is a logical se-
quence from Koros to Hybris to Ate,
which means from surfeit to dis-
dainful arrogance to disaster, the
surfeit being increased scientific and
practical accomplishments, which,
however, brought about an inclina-
tion to throw away the old motiva-
tions and values by disdainful arro-
gant pride in practical efficiency.
Moral and physical disaster is the
inevitable consequence.
Fortunately, there are develop-
ments in this democratic society
that counteract these trends. Nota-
ble among them are the societies
of patients afflicted with various
chronic diseases that have sprung
up and are dedicating themselves to
guidance and information for their
fellow sufferers and for the support
and stimulation of medical research.
Among the earliest was the mental
hygiene movement, founded by a
former patient with mental disease.
Then came the National Founda-
tion for Infantile Paralysis, the
tuberculosis societies, the Ameri-
can Epilepsy League, the National
Association to Control Epilepsy,
the American Cancer Society, The
American Heart Association, "Alco-
holics Anonymous" and, most recent-
ly the National Multiple Sclerosis
Society. All these societies, which
are coordinated with special medi-
cal societies and which received in-
spiration and guidance from out-
standing physicians, are having an
extremely wholesome effect in in-
troducing fresh motivating power
into the ivory towers of academic
medicine. It is indeed interesting
and an assertion of democratic vital-
ity that these societies are activated
by and for people suffering from
illnesses who, under certain dictator-
ships, would have been slated for
euthanasia.
It is thus that these new societies
have taken over one of the ancient
functions of medicine — namely, to
give hope to the patient and to re-
lieve his relatives. These societies
need the wholehearted support of the
medical profession. Unfortunately,
this support is by no means yet
unanimous. A distinguished physi-
cian, investigator and teacher at an
outstanding university recently told
me that he was opposed to these
150
Ial societies and clinics because
they had nothing to offer to the pa-
It would be better to wait
until someone made a discovery acci-
dentally and then start clinics. It is
my opinion, however, that one can-
not wait for that. The stimulus sup-
plied by these societies is necessary
to give stimulus both to public de-
mand and to academic medicine,
which at times grows stale and un-
productive even in its most outstand-
ing centers, and whose existence did
nothing to prevent the executioner
from having logic on his side in
Germany.
Another element of this free dem-
ocratic society and enterprise that
has been a stimulus to new develop-
ments is the pharmaceutical indus-
try, which, with great vision, has in-
vested considerable effort in the
sponsorship of new research.
Dictatorships can be indeed de-
fined as systems in which there is
a prevalence of thinking in destruc-
tive, rather than in ameliorative
terms in dealing with social prob-
lems. The ease with which destruc-
tion of life is advocated for those
considered either socially useless or
illy disturbing instead of educa-
tional or ameliorative measures may
be the first danger sign of loss of
creative liberty in thinking, which is
the hallmark of democratic society.
All deetructivenes8 ultimately leads
f -destruction ; the fate of the
SS and of Nazi Germany is an elo-
quent example. The destructive prin-
ciple, once unleashed, is bound to
engulf the whole personality and to
•• all its relationships. Destruc-
- and destructive concepts
arising therefrom cannot remain
limited or focused upon one subject
or several subjects alone, but must
inevitably spread and be directed
against one's entire surrounding
world, including one's own group
and ultimately the self. The amelio-
rative point of view maintained in
relation to all others is the only
real means of self-preservation.
A most important need in this
country is for the development of
active and alert hospital centers for
the treatment of chronic illnesses.
They must have active staffs similar
to those of the hospitals for acute
illnesses, and these hospitals must
be fundamentally different from the
custodial repositories for derelicts,
of which there are too many in
existence today. Only thus can one
give the right answer to divine
scrutiny : Yes, we are our brothers'
keepers. O
REFERENCES
1 Bumke, O. Discussion of Faltlhauser, K.
Zur Frage der Sterilisierung geistig Abnormer.
AUg. Ztachr. f. Psychiat., 96:372, 1932.
2 Dierichs, R. Beitrag zur psychischen An-
staltsbehandlung 'i uberkuloser. Zischr. f.
Tuberk., 74:21-8, 1936.
3 Dorner, A. Mathematik in Dienste der
Nationalpolitischen Erziehung: Ein Handbuch
fur Lehrer, herausgegeben in Auftrage des
Reich8verbande8 Deutscher mathematischer Ge-
sellgchaften und Vereine. Moritz Diesterweg,
Frankfurt, 1935, pp. 1-118. Second edition
(revised). 1936, pp. 1-118, Third edition (re-
vised) .
4 Alexander, L. Public Mental Health Prac-
tices in Germany, Sterilization and Execution
of Patients Suffering from Nervous or Mental
Disease. Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-
committee, Item No. 24, File No. XXVIII-50,
Aug. 1946, pp. 1-173.
5 — • Neuropathology and Neurophysiol-
ogy, Including Electro-Encephalography in
War-time Germany. Combined Intelligence Ob-
jectives Subcommittee, Item No. 24, File No.
XXVII-1, July 1945, pp. 1-65.
* ~~r • German Military Neuropsychiatry
and Neurosurgery. Combined Intelligence Ob-
jectives Subcommittee, Item No. 24, File No
XXVIII-49, Aug. 1945, pp. 1-138.
_ 7 ~ :• Sociopsychologic Structure of SS .
Psychiatric Report of Nurnberg Trials for
^? r ,. Cr } me £- Arch " Neurol. & Psychiat., 69
bii-ii, 1948.
151
8 . War Crimes : Their Social-Psycho-
logical Aspects. Amer. J. Psychiat., 105:170-7,
1948.
9 . War Crimes and Their Motivation :
Socio-Psychological Structure of SS and Crim-
inalization of Society. J. Crim. Law & Crim-
inal., 39:298-326, 1948.
10 Madaus, G., and Koch, F. Tierexperimen-
telle Studien zur Frage der Medikamentosen
Sterilisierung (durch Caladium seguinum)
(Dieffenbachia seguina) . Ztschr. f. d. ges.
exper. Med., 109:68-87, 1941.
li Madaus, G. Zauberpftanzen im Lichte ex-
perimenteller Forschung, Das Schweigrohr —
Caladium seguinum. Umsehau, 24:600-2, 1941.
12 Alexander, L. Miscellaneous Aviation Med-
ical Matters. Combined Intelligence Objectives
Subcommittee, Item No. 24, File No. XXIX-21,
Aug. 1945, pp. 1-163.
13 Document 1971 a PS.
14 Document NO 220.
15 Alexander, L. Treatment of Shock from
Prolonged Exposure to Cold, Especially in
Water. Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-
committee, Item No. 24, File No. XXVI-37.
July 1945, pp. 1-228.
16 Seiss-Inquart. Order of the Reich Com-
missar for the Occupied Netherlands Terri-
tories Concerning the Netherlands Doctors.
(Gazette containing the orders for the Oc-
cupied Netherlands Territories), Dec. 1941,
pp. 1004-26.
17 Bernal, J. D. The Social Function of
Science. George Routledge & Sons, London,
1946, 482 pp. Sixth edition.
18 Toynbee, A. J. A Study of History,
Abridgement of Vol. I-VI. By D. C. Somervell.
Oxford Univ. Press, New York and London,
1947, 617 pp.
Reprinted from The New England Journal of Medicine, 2H :S9-b7, 19J,9.
© 19b9 by the Massachusetts Medical Society.
Editor's Comment:
His stark experience as an official
American medical expert at the Nur-
emberg Trials of German physician-
executioners of Nazi medical atrocities
clearly had a profound effect on A.
The experience impelled him to record
the insidious progression of corrosive
medical thinking which led to the de-
gradation of the German medical pro-
fession and to warn his American col-
leagues with startling prophetic insight
and foresight that what happened there
could happen here.
It must be remembered that in the
decades preceding World War II, Ger-
man medicine was preeminent. Ger-
many was the leading world center for
post-graduate medical studies. As the
United States is to the world of medi-
cine today, Germany was then. To see
this great giant topple not only shocked
the medical world but raised for the
reflective the crucial question of how
the giant's downfall came about.
A's answer has great simplicity — a
simplicity that gets to the heart of the
matter: that the moment German
medicine forgot that cure etymological-
ly derives from care and deviated from
medicine's prime end of healing, it be-
gan its inexorable road to doom.
These are his words:
Whatever proportions these crimes
finally assumed, it became evident
to all who investigated them that
they had started from small begin-
nings. The beginnings at first were
merely a subtle shift in emphasis in
the basic attitude of physicians. It
started with the acceptance of the
attitude, basic in the euthanasia
movement, that there is such a thing
as life not worthy to be lived.
He adds,
This attitude in its early stages
concerned itself merely with the
severely and chronically sick. Grad-
ually the sphere of those to be in-
cluded in this category was enlarged
to encompass the socially unproduc-
tive, the ideologically unwanted, the
racially unwanted and finally all
non-Germans. But it is important
to realize that the infinitely small
wedged-in lever from which this en-
152
tire trend of mind received its im-
petus was the attitude toward the
nonrehabilitable sick.
Intellectuals today, of course, bristle
BeLf-righteoosly at the "camel's nose in
the tent" thesis. They insist that firm
intellects have no difficulty drawing a
line when small beginnings exceed their
la. In believing this they miss the
stark lesson of the ripening of the Ger-
man medical profession for Nazi ex-
ploitation. They also forget Judge Car-
famous reminder of "the ten-
dency of a principle to expand itself
to the limit of its logic." (Nature of
idicicU Process. P. 51).
The major historical questions we
must confront are, where were the firm
intellects when German medicine be-
gan its calamitous descent into bar-
barism? What lassitude enveloped the
body of German medicine when the
German euthanasia movement took
hold in the nineteen twenties, ten years
before Hitler's ascendency? Despite
the clear-cut warning from the history
of the Third Reich and the German
medical profession, are we in the
United States retracing their demonic
retrogression wherein killing super-
sedes healing?
German medicine, at least, had the
excuse of not knowing the magnitude
of what was to befall them. Are we
incapable of learning from history's
explicit lesson? Can we not see that
what happened there is now happening
here in an inexorable sequence?
A. made clear when the above paper
was written, that
The killing center is the reductio
ad absurdum of all health planning
based only on rational principles
and economy and not on human com-
passion and divine law. To be sure,
American physicians are still far
from the point of thinking of killing
centers, but they have arrived at a
danger point in thinking, at which
likelihood of full rehabilitation is
considered a factor that should de-
termine the amount of time, effort
and cost to be devoted to a particu-
lar type of patient on the part of
the social body upon which this de-
cision rests. At this point Ameri-
cans should remember that the
enormity of a euthanasia movement
is present in their midst.
Since 1949, when A. wrote the above,
we have in fact progressed to killing
centers. Hundreds of thousands of un-
born children are being killed yearly
in abortariums. The movement for
euthanasia of the already born is gal-
loping along at great speed. Killing
has become the major prevalent medi-
cal procedure of the medical profession
A's paper should be read by every-
one who can read. Our debt to him is
immense. His prescient grasp of the
need to rescue the German lesson for
posterity is literally clairvoyant. That
he has become a leading spokesman
against abortion and euthanasia should
become an exemplar for all. HR
153
PAUL C. WEICK
DON J. YOUNG
The Ohio Decision
on Abortion
From Child and Family, Vol 10, Mo. 1, 1971
this is another in a series of
cases which have been and are being
filed in various courts throughout
the United States attacking the con-
stitutionality of state statutes for-
bidding abortions. This particular
action was brought under Title 28
U.S.C. §§1331-1343, Title 28 U.S.C.
§§2201 and 2202, Title 28 U.S.C.
§§2281 and 2284, and Title 42 U.S.C.
§1983. The plaintiffs seek a declara-
tory judgment that Ohio's abortion
statute, Section 2901.16 Ohio Rev.
Code (1), is unconstitutional under
the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth,
Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments
to the Constitution of the United
States. They also seek injunctive
relief against the enforcement of
the statute. Hence a three judge
court was convened to hear and de-
termine the matter.
The plaintiffs claim that each of
them represents a class of persons
who are affected by the Ohio statute
complained of. One plaintiff is a
physician specializing in obstetrics
and gynecology; one is a psychia-
trist; one is a social worker ; one is
a minister of religion ; and the final
one is a young woman, married but
separated from her husband, the
mother of one child born in wedlock,
and at the time of commencement
of the action early in September,
1970, eight to ten weeks pregnant
with another child conceived in wed-
lock.
The defendants named in the
amended complaint are the Governor
and Attorney General of the State
of Ohio, the Prosecuting Attorney
of Lucas County, Ohio, wherein this
Division of the District Court sits,
and the Chief of Police of the City
of Toledo, the county seat of Lucas
County.
The amended complaint seeks a
declaratory judgment that Section
2901.16 Ohio Rev. Code is in vio-
lation of the rights of the plaintiffs
under the six amendments to the
Constitution listed above and for in-
junctive relief.
A motion for a temporary re-
straining order was heard and over-
ruled by the single judge of the
Western Division of the Northern
District of Ohio, and a motion to
intervene as a party defendant on
behalf of the unborn child of the
plaintiff Mary Doe, and the class of
unborn children of the women ot
the class represented by Mary Doe,
filed by Homer Schroeder, M.D., was
granted by this single judge.
Dr. Schroeder also filed a motion
to be appointed as Guardian ad
154
Litem for the unborn child, and
motions for leave to file briefs
amic ■ were filed by a group
of some forty organizations and in-
dividuals supporting the plaintiffs,
and by the Ohio Right to Life So-
ciety, Inc. supporting the defend-
ants. Various other motions were
filed, including motions by all of the
defendants except the intervening
defendant Schroeder to dismiss the
complaint, and a motion of the
plaintiffs to dismiss the intervening
ndant Schroeder.
The motions to dismiss were over-
ruled, as were the motion to appoint
a guardian od litem for the unborn
child and children, and the other
technical motions. The two princi-
pal motions for leave to file briefs
amicus curiae were granted.
The case was submitted upon the
evidence offered at the hearing on
the motion for a temporary restrain-
ing order, certain stipulations, the
deposition of John F. Hillabrand,
M.D., the briefs, and arguments of
coun
The evidence indicated that the
plaintiffs Steinberg and Fitzgerald
had been consulted by the plaintiff
Mary Doe. When Dr. Steinberg ex-
amined her on October second, she
ired to he eight to ten weeks
ant, but he testified that an-
might think she was
twelve to fourteen weeks pregnant.
THE HON". MR. WEICK is an Appel-
U.S. Dist. Ct., Northern
tern Div.
THE HON. MR. YOUNG is a Trial
n U.S. Dist. Ct., North-
ern Dist. Ohio, Western Div.
He also testified that she was in
normal physical condition, and that
her previous pregnancy had been
normal, with no complications. He
further testified that at that stage
of her pregnancy, abortion would
present less hazard to life than to
carry the child to term, but this
situation would not continue, as the
hazards of abortion increase later
in pregnancy.
The plaintiff psychiatrist, Dr.
Fitzgerald, testified that Mary Doe
had a serious defect in her ability
to make judgments about people and
situations ; that her daydreams in-
fluenced her more than the actual
facts; that she was moderately de-
pressed and withdrawn; that she
was seriously disturbed, and pre-
sented gross or serious defects in
her ego-functioning; that she could
become a child-battering mother;
and that she irrationally rejected
the alternative to abortion of carry-
ing the child to term and then con-
senting to adoptive placement. How-
ever, he did not predict that she
would either die or kill herself if
this pregnancy were carried to term,
although it would do her grave psy-
chological harm. He stated that the
likelihood of great damage coming
to the infant from neglect or abuse
were high indeed. It was his con-
clusion that in such states as Cali-
fornia or Colorado, Mary Doe could
receive therapeutic approval for
abortion on psychiatric and medical
grounds.
The evidence revealed that Mary
Doe was a welfare recipient in
Wood County, Ohio, adjacent to
Lucas County. She is twenty-one
155
years old.
Both of the plaintiff doctors testi-
fied that they believed they would be
violating the Ohio abortion statute
if they advised the plaintiff Mary
Doe to seek an abortion outside the
State of Ohio, although it was stipu-
lated in evidence that no physician
had ever been prosecuted in Lucas
County for a violation of Section
2901.16 Ohio Rev. Code as an aider
and abettor on the ground that he
counseled or procured an abortion,
nor had any minister or social
worker. It was also stipulated that
no such prosecutions had ever been
threatened, nor had any of the plain-
tiffs ever been warned by any law
enforcement authorities.
The only other evidence in the
case was the deposition of Dr. Hil-
labrand offered by the defendants.
This concerned the development of
unborn children from conception to
birth. It also offered statistical evi-
dence that the risk of maternal mor-
tality was far higher from abortions
performed even under clinical condi-
tions than from carrying the child
until natural childbirth. This testi-
mony is, of course, in square conflict
with that of the plaintiff Steinberg,
but it is unnecessary for the pur-
poses of this opinion to resolve this
conflict, since it involves policy con-
siderations which are properly legis-
lative, rather than judicial, concerns.
This case presents threshold ques-
tions of the right to injunctive re-
lief, standing of the plaintiffs to
maintain the action, and the doc-
trine of abstention. These problems
have been considered in other simi-
lar cases.
The question of standing is con-
sidered in Roe v. Wade, 314 F. Supp.
1217 (N.D. Texas 1970), and Doe v.
Bolton, F. Supp. (N.D.
Georgia 1970). Both cases resolved
the question favorably to parties
who stood in the positions of the
plaintiffs here. We accept the con-
clusions in these cases, and hold
that the plaintiffs herein have
proper standing to maintain this
action. Cf. Flast v. Cohen, 32 U.S.
83 (1968).
The problem of abstention was
considered and abstention denied in
the case of Babbitz v. McCann, 310
F. Supp. 293 (E.D. Wis. 1970) app.
dis. 39 U.S.L.W. 3144 (Oct. 12
1970). See also, Doe v. Bolton,
supra. There was no proof that
prosecution of any of the plaintiffs
was commenced or even threatened.
Plaintiffs are therefore not entitled
to injunctive relief. The prayer for
injunction restraining the enforce-
ment of the statute is therefore
denied.
This then requires a resolution of
the merits of the plaintiffs' request
for declaratory relief, to which we
now address ourselves.
The plaintiffs' first contention is
that Section 2901.16 Ohio Rev. Code
is unconstitutionally vague and in-
definite. This same contention has
been raised in a number of cases, in-
volving statutes of different states.
There are differences in language
among all of the various statutes
that have been brought before the
courts, and by using the same sort
of hairsplitting semanticism that
the plaintiffs have employed in argu-
ment, it would be possible to dis-
156
•he Ohio statute from the
not appear to us,
sufficient dif-
e among the vari-
nvolved in other cases
:• desirable to use so nar-
and limited an approach to the
ems preferable to take
:id with one group or the other
of the divided authorities.
Abortion statutes have been held
unconstitutionally vague in the cases
rnia v. Belous, 71 Cal. 2d
Cal. Rptr. 354 (1969), 458
, 397 U.S. 915
States v. Vuitch,
Supp. 1032 (D.D.C. 1969),
juris, noted, 397 U.S. 1061
v. Wade, 314 F.
Supp. 1217 (N.D. Texas 1970). Con-
holdings are found in Babbitz
v. McCann, supra and Rosen v. The
nana State Board of Medical
rs, F. Supp.
fE.D. La. New Orleans Div. 1970).
The question was raised, but not
led, in Dor v. Bolton, supra.
We believe that the better reason-
ing is found in those cases which
hold that there is no unconstitutional
ess in the abortion statutes
which thev consider. It appears to
iiat the vagueness which dis-
a the plaintiffs herein results
from their own strained construc-
tion of the language used, coupled
with the modern notion among law
-•iters that anything that is
not c n numerous paragraphs
r »f n >gal terminology is too
support a criminal con-
v. Toledo Metro-
nq Authority, 311 F.
-.D. Ohio W.D. 1970).
The words of the Ohio statute, taken
in their ordinary meaning, have
over a long period of years proved
entirely adequate to inform the pub-
lic, including both lay and profes-
sional people, of what is forbidden.
The problem of the plaintiffs is not
that they do not understand, but
that basically they do not accept, its
proscription.
The second contention of the
plaintiffs and those amicus curiae
who support their position is that
the Ohio abortion statute deprives
them of the right of privacy which
is supposedly protected by several
amendments to the Constitution of
the United States. The arguments
and authorities cited go on at in-
ordinate length, but when the me-
ringue is sluiced away, they come
down to the contention that the de-
cision of the Supreme Court in
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S.
479 (1965), which recognized the
right of marital privacy by voiding
a statute preventing dissemination
of contraceptive information and de-
vices, must by extension protect the
right to destroy the product of con-
ception after it has taken place.
Again the authorities are divided,
some courts accepting the plaintiffs'
view, and others refusing to do so.
The majoritv of this Court do not
accept the plaintiffs' contentions as
constitutionally valid, but believes
that the cases which do accept them
have not been based on a proper
legal or factual understanding. The
plaintiffs' contentions seek to extend
far beyond the holding in the Gris-
wold case this "right of privacy,"
which is nowhere expressly men-
157
tioned in the Constitution or its
amendments, but is only found in
the "penumbra" of those articles.
Rights, the provision of which is
only implied or deduced, must in-
evitably fall in conflict with the ex-
press provisions of the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments that no per-
son shall be deprived of life with-
out due process of law. The differ-
ence between this case and Griswold
is clearly apparent, for here there
is an embryo or fetus incapable of
protecting itself. There, the only
lives were those of two competent
adults.
Without go,ing into all of the
myriad of cases and texts that deal
with various aspects of this prob-
lem, the question resolves itself into
whether or not the state has a
legitimate interest to legislate for
the purpose of affording an embry-
onic or fetal organism an opportu-
nity to survive. We think it has and
on balance it is superior to the
claimed right of a pregnant woman
or anyone else to destroy the fetus
except when necessary to preserve
her own life.
One of the great puzzles of the
law is why its practitioners blithely
argue their cases and make their de-
cision in total disregard, if not ig-
norance, of the laws of nature.
Automobile collision cases, for ex-
ample, are often decided on the basis
of facts which are completely impos-
sible under the physical laws of mo-
tion and mechanics. So in this area,
those decisions which strike down
state abortion statutes by equating
contraception and abortion pay no
attention to the facts of biology.
The evidence offered by the de-
fendants in this case shows clearly,
conclusively, and in detail that nei-
ther the human ovum or spermato-
zoon are alive, or capable of inde-
pendent life, in the accepted mean-
ing of that word. One dictionary
definition of the word "life" is
. . . that quality or character
[that] distinguishes an animal or
a plant from inorganic or dead
organic bodies and which is espe-
cially manifested by metabolism,
growth, reproduction and internal
powers of adaptation to the en-
vironment. Webster's New Inter-
national Dictionary of the Eng-
lish Language (2nd ed. 1934).
Biologically, when the spermatozoon
penetrates and fertilizes the ovum,
the result is the creation of a new
organism which conforms to the
definition of life just given. Al-
though this is a definite beginning,
there is no assurance in any particu-
lar case as to how long the life thus
begun will continue. It may endure
only a few hours or days, or it may
continue in excess of a century, so
far as human life is concerned. In
other life forms it may continue for
many measurable centuries, or even
for an immeasurable and endless
period. Thus when a new life comes
into being with the union of human
egg and sperm cells, it may termi-
nate, or be terminated, at any mo-
ment after it commences, and before,
at, or after the particular develop-
mental process called "birth" takes
place. Such terms as "quick" or
"viable," which are frequently en-
158
countered in legal discussion, are
itifically imprecise and without
•gnized medical meaning, and
hence irrelevant to the problem here
i. As scientific knowledge
of prenatal physiological processes
increases, medical intervention will
hance of avoiding
premature termination of lives of
children, both before and after birth.
Thus contraception, which is dealt
with in Griswold, is concerned with
preventing the creation of a new
and independent life. The right and
power of a man or a woman to de-
termine whether or not to partici-
in this process of creation is
ply a private and personal one
with which the law cannot and
should not interfere.
It seems clear, however, that the
conclusions in Griswold as to
the rights of individuals to deter-
mine without governmental inter-
ference whether or not to enter into
the processes of procreation cannot
be extended to cover those situations
wherein, voluntarily or involuntari-
he preliminaries have ended,
and a new life has begun. Once
human life has commenced, the
itutional protections found in
the Fifth and Fourteenth Amend-
ments impose upon the state the
dutv of safeguarding it.
piously, of course, there are
limits to the protection which the
can and must extend to human
but these are clear and well-
marked in the law, and have been
•iries, essentially on the
'•vation is the
law of nature." Thus through-
he development of our law,
self-defense has always been recog-
nized as a justification for homicide.
Hence the provision in the statute
here in question that abortion is
noncriminal when it is necessary,
or declared by two physicians to be
necessary, to preserve the life of the
mother. One human life may legally
be terminated when doing so is
necessary to preserve or protect an-
other or others.
There is authority for the propo-
sition that human life commences at
the moment of conception.
Biologically speaking, the life
of a human being begins at the
moment of conception in the
mother's womb. 42 Am. Jr. 2d,
Infants §2 at p. 9 (1968).
From the viewpoint of the civil
law and the law of property, a
child en ventre sa mere is not
only regarded as a human being,
but as such from the moment of
conception . . . which it is in fact.
Bonbrest v. Kotz, 65 F. Supp.
138, 140 (D.D.C. 1946).
. . . medical authority has rec-
ognized long since that the child
is in existence from the moment
of conception . . . W. Prosser, The
Law of Torts, §56 at 355 (3rd ed.
1964).
In this connection it should be
noted that Ohio never did follow
Mr. Justice Holmes's opinion in
Dietrich v. Northampton. 138 Mass.
14, 52 Am. Rep. 242 (1884), which
for more than half a century fouled
up the tort law with respect to pre-
natal injuries, but is now pretty well
abandoned by all courts except those
159
which, once having made a mistake,
cannot admit it, but expect the legis-
lature to rescue the public from the
consequences of their error. The
courts of Ohio have never hesitated
to protect a child merely because it
was unborn at the time of injury.
If the law is in accord with
science for the purpose of protect-
ing property rights, how can it pos-
sibly not be in accord with science
for the purpose of protecting life
itself, without which no property
right has any worth or value what-
soever ?
It should perhaps be mentioned
that the implication, or sometimes
the express statement, found in
arguments of persons in the posi-
tion of the plaintiffs in this case,
which equates the necessity of giv-
ing birth to a child with the neces-
sity of rearing the child, has no
foundation in law or fact. The law
may take permanently from its nat-
ural parents a child who is neglected
by them, and the frequent pusil-
lanimity of courts and social agen-
cies in this regard does not change
the legal situation. The statutes of
practically all states provide for the
voluntary surrender of children.
When the statutes are complied
with, the child is legally and prac-
tically as dead to its natural parents
as if it had been aborted, stillborn,
or had died in infancy. The valid-
ity and effectiveness of surrender
statutes have been upheld in every
case in which they have been ques-
tioned. There is no need for par-
ents to terminate an undesired preg-
nancy by killing the unborn child
physically, when with less risk to
themselves its legal death can so
easily be procured.
It is our conclusion that Section
2901.16 Ohio Rev. Code is a valid
and proper exercise of the power
of the state.
The plaintiffs' contention that the
abortion statute is in violation of
the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment requires
little consideration. This statute,
§2901.16 Ohio Rev. Code is clearly
nondiscriminatory upon its face.
There is nothing in the evidence be-
fore the Court to show any official
discrimination to the application of
the statute, or in commencing prose-
cutions under it.
Assuming, arguendo, that the con-
tentions of the plaintiffs that
wealthy persons can shop for more
complaisant physicians, or can travel
to remote places where abortion is
legal, while poor people cannot, have
a sound basis in fact, the situation
is not inherent in the language of
the statute. Neither is it caused,
not could it be cured, by either ac-
tion or inaction on the part of the
government, either state or national.
The equal protection clause is not
designed to prevent that inequality
which is often found in life and in
nature, nor could any law be framed
to do so. So far as this case is con-
cerned, on the evidence adduced, the
social and economic conditions al-
leged by plaintiffs as a basis for
their equal protection argument do
not affect any of the actual parties,
and hence the classes they represent.
In seeking a temporary restraining
order the plaintiffs appeared to con-
tend that only the force of the law
160
stood in the way of plaintiff Mary
Doe undergoing the abortion she
' vd, and the other plaintiffs de-
i her, to have. It was not
claimed that her economic or social
situation would prevent her from
getting an abortion.
We do not find that §2901.16 Ohio
Rev. Code is in any way violative of
the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
The contention that the Ohio abor-
tion statute contravenes the Eighth
Amendment proscription of cruel
and unusual punishment is unworthy
of serious consideration. It may
seem cruel to a hedonist society that
"those who dance must pay the
piper," but it is hardly unusual, and
the language of the amendment is in
the conjunctive, not the disjunctive.
In the complexities of human life it
is not always possible to foretell
with exactitude the entire conse-
quences of even the simplest or
most innocent action. But if it is
known generally that an act has pos-
sible consequences that the actor
does not desire to incur, he has al-
- the choice between refraining
from the act, or taking his chance
of incurring the undesirable con-
sequences. There are no other al-
ternatives. This is peculiarly true
with respect to the bearing of chil-
dren. If one gambles and loses, it is
neither statute nor constitution that
determines the price, or how it shall
be paid. The result is not punish-
ment, but merely the quid pro quo.
The controversial problems of the
plaintiffs should be addressed to the
state's legislature and not the courts
for solution. The courts ought not
to be expected to provide a remedy
for all of the ailments afflicting so-
ciety.
For the foregoing reasons, the
plaintiffs are not entitled to a decla-
ratory judgment invalidating Ohio's
abortion statute, Section 2901.16
Ohio Rev. Code.
This opinion is adopted as findings
of fact and conclusions of law.
Judgment will be entered in favor
of the defendants dismissing the
amended complaint. O
FOOTNOTE
(1) Ohio's abortion statute provides:
No person shall prescribe or administer
a medicine, drug, or substance, or use an
instrument or other means with intent to
procure the miscarriage of a woman, un-
less such miscarriage is necessary to pre-
serve her life, or is advised by two physi-
cians to be necessary for that purpose.
Whoever violates this section, if the
woman either miscarries or dies in con-
sequence thereof, shall be imprisoned not
less than one nor more than seven years.
This statute or one very similar to it has
been in effect since at least 1834. Section 1 of
the Act of February 7, 1834, S & C Stat. 440.
Wilson v. State, 2 Ohio St. 319 (1853). There
have been many prosecutions under it but
until the present case, so far as we have been
able to ascertain, no one has ever challenged
its constitutionality.
Steinberg, et ah, v. Rhodes and Schroeder, No. C 70-S89, U.S. Dist. Ct.,
No. Diet. Ohio, West. Div., Dec. 18, 1970
161
[From the Uncertified Human, vol. 2, No. 2, July 1974]
Michael Litchfield Discovebs
A few years ago, the Lane Committee was appointed by the British govern-
ment to study the effects of abortion on demand in Britain.
The final report of the Committee appeared, even to a usually pro-abortion
press, hardly adequate as reform.
For one, the Committee, like the polite bureaucracy that it is, always issued
"notice" to the nortorious British abortion factories before paying them a
visit — which is a bit like giving "notice" to the Mafia before making a bust.
Consequently, it took a gutsy independent journalist, Michael Litchfield, to
show up the appalling situations at some of these enterprises where, indeed,
one doctor is negotiating with cosmetic firms to have the "really fat babies"
he aborts made into cosmetic soap.
Mr. Litchfield was awarded the Pulitzer prize in 1967 for exposing the
Mafia in the Bahamas.
Litchfield avoided giving the abortion mills adequate notice during his
investigation. What he uncovered is so horrendous as to be unbelievable, were
it not for the fact that every bit of it is on tape.
Litchfield's findings were listed in two News of the World articles. We are
quoting some of them here from the text of his address at the April 28 pro
life rally sponsored by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children.
"The Lane Committee took three years to look into the workings of the
Abortion Act in Britain. . . . Their brief was to investigate the workings of
the Abortion Act.
"Investigate !
"They could not have uncovered the gravy in a steak and kidney pie.
"They took three years to say that every thing in the garden is rosy.
"I, with another journalist, took three months to prove beyond doubt that
everything in the abortion backyard is overrun with corruption. We two jour-
nalists, trained to investigate, began with utterly open minds ... no precon-
ceived notions . . . not prejudices. And, our tape-recordings are imperishable
testimonies to the organized corruption and prostitution of the medical pro-
fession, from the very top to the very bottom of the abortion trade.
"To hell with the Lane Committee. As investigators, they are a bunch of
amateurs. They gave everyone . . . advance notice of their impending arrival
when they were to visit them.
"I told no one of my activities in advance. Whom do you believe discovered
the truth?
"The lunatic fringe has tried to label anti-abortionists as fascists. However,
let me tell you about two Harley Street surgeons. They are not small fry. They
are very big fish. Big cars, big cigars, big abortion clinics and big bank balances.
Both these gentlemen confided to me: 'The great thing about the Abortion
Act is that it has given us the opportunity to perpetuate Hitler's progressive
thinking.' I have that on tape.
"Which side sounds fascist?
"If I had heard some of the things that I am going to tell you a few months
back I would have thought they were scare stories put about by hysterics.
But the fact is that they were said to me : they were said to me in all serious-
ness and I have them on tape.
"One surgeon, who owns his own abortion clinics, is trying to sell the bodies
of aborted babies to factories for use in making cosmetic soap.
"'Animal fat is a very valuable commodity,' he said. 'I get some really fat
babies. It seems a shame to drop them into an incinerator when they could be
out to such good use, and also make me an extra bob or two on the side.
"All that is tape-recorded.
"The Lane Committee recommends that the time limit for an abortion should
be reduced from 28 to 24 weeks. What a bunch of jokers they are ! They could
reduce the time limit to two weeks and there would still be the same number
of abortions. One woman— the head of a pregnancy advisory service— told us :
'It doesn't matter about how far gone a girl is— we can just fiddle the dates.
Who's to dispute the figures once the child is in the incinerator.' That, too, is
all tape-recorded.
"Mr Michael Grylls MP has threatened us with an amending bill in the
'light of recommendations put forward by the Lane Committee'— so we can
all imagine how much use that would be. His great contribution to British
162
law would be to License abortion agencies (the so-called pregnancy advisory
services), thus outlawing taxi-touts. How much good does Mr Grylls in his
think thai would do-especially since licensing private clinics has
. nothing to curb their brutal trade. In fact, it would be more truthful for
him to legalize the taxi-touts and to outlaw the pregnancy advisory services
because at hast the British public and panic stricken girls would know what
h, tact the abortion treadmill was one of the most frighten-
!,iv cut in- investigation. Girls are literally cornered into abortion.
ie n1 they arc declared pregnant by the testing centre or the clinic,
then tor them. They are pushed from one person to another in
ildennent, more or less told that there is no alternative, and come
nut the other end of the sausage machine without their babies, without any-
thing onfusion.
ntless women I spoke to had gone to clinics for advice on their preg-
nancies The rcsulf- They had been told by the clinics that because they were
unmarried they would be social outcasts and the only honourable solution was
to have an abortion. . ,
rtions were fixed and performed within three hours. The girls were
er allowed to go away to think about it. They were whisked from one doctor
not her, and then escorted to their Irflnk to draw out enough cash for the
operation, and back to the clinic and into the operating theatre.
clinic even boasted that they had a "Roman Catholic priest" who tells
Roman Catholic girls that abortion is within the concept of their faith.
en pregnancy testing centres and clinics even found ME pregnant. My
urine was sent by an independent doctor to the clinics and the results were
positive.
•That shows just how well the Abortion Act is working. And that shows,
too. just how badly the Lane Committee did their work."
In conjunction with the rally the Society for the Protection of Unborn Chil-
•nt a letter the same day to the Prime Minister which said, in part:
Abortion Act means that this country is in clear contravention of the
ON Declaration of the Rights of the Child, passed at a time when the effects
ty of the diminution of respect for life could be more clearly remem-
bered. The Declaration states: "The child, by reason of his physical and mental
Immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal pro-
ri, before birth, as well as after birth."
"Because of the Abortion Act, the plight of deprived women has intensified.
Now, the onus is on a woman to fight often unbeatable social manipulation
in order that she might keep her unborn baby. There is considerable evidence
that the Abortion Act is being used as a palliative for bad housing conditions —
and certainly the illegitimate, the unmarried mother and the physically and
mentally handicapped have suffered as a result of its cruel innuendos.
•For these reasons, we pledge that we will not be fobbed off with spurious
legislation based on the "findings" of the Lane Committee. We pointed out from
the first that the committee (from which anyone who had spoken against
abortion was automatically excluded) was ill-constituted. Objectivity cannot
lie achieved when a committee whose work, in part at least, must investigate
the activities and attitudes of a particular government department, is estab-
lished by that same department . . ."
While it may be too early to tell, it is possible that the fat is in the fire
for the Abortion Act in Britain.
Feminists for Life, Inc.,
Columbus, Ohio, August 30, J 974.
'iTl nn,
tr,
hington, D.r.
BATH. In turn. I would like to thank you for giving me the
opportunity to come before you to testify. I wish all the other members of the
mittee were as conscientious about the matter as you are. Please thank
i ong for being there, even though he left before my testimony, and
• • unknown person on your right.
I omitted two items from my testimony which I meant to include. The first
f with what was to be entered into the record as part of my
mony. From our newsletter, on the first page of which was a
163
letter in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, we meant to include only
the untitled article by George Steven Swan, JD, with its footnotes, which gives
a concise feminist viewpoint on the question of euthanasia. Please pardon
me for the omission.
The second omission was a comment I intended to make relative to the
comment by Dr. Mildred Jefferson that she has never been pregnant. I intended
to mention that I have been pregnant twice, and have participated in child-
birth twice, and it is my considered opinion, having also interviewed numerous
women about their experiences, that except in the case of some abnormality
in pregnancy (about 5% of the total cases) any discomfort which occurs be-
cause of pregnancy or childbirth is 90% caused by our culture ! Those women
who managed to shake the brainwashing about reproduction that our culture
teaches us from very early on, experience no appreciable discomfort, either
during the nine months, or during the birth. I have never experienced morning
sickness, and the only pain I experienced during childbirth stemmed from
interference by attending personnel. I was fully awake and participating through-
out. 1 During my pregnancies I led a normal active life, which, during my second
pregnancy, included attending school half time (I was out for 3 days for child-
birth), graduating a year and a half later, confounding Feminists for Life,
playing judo and swimming up to within 5 days of childbirth and taking up
less than three weeks after, which included a distance swim two weeks prior
to childbirth of 2% miles. Please note that as a child I was considered frail.
It is my considered opinion that one of the primary causes of the current pres-
sure for abortion stems from the negative aura surrounding pregnancy and
childbirth, and that it is our duty as feminists to work to educate the public
about the true nature of woman's reproduction as an integral and natural part
of her sexuality, and to see to it that no discrimination is practiced against
women who are reproducing. Cordially,
Pat Goltz.
Senator Bath. We have just been informed that President Ford
is going to address a session of the Senate here in about an hour or
so.
I will tell yon, if I have questions that I cannot resolve, I will ask
you to submit answers in writing if I may.
Ms. Goltz. That is fine. You also may have the resources of our
organization for additional information if you want it.
Senator Bath. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Mr. Warren A. Schaller. president and executive director of the
American Citizens Concerned For Life.
STATEMENT OF WARREN A. SCHALLER, JR., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
AMERICAN CITIZENS CONCERNED FOR LIFE, INC.
Mr. Schaller. Senator Bayh and members of the subcommittee on
constitutional amendments, my name is Warren Schaller. I am an
Episcopalian minister. I have been active in local. State, and Na-
tional pro-life groups for several years. Today I am addressing you
as the president and executive director of American Citizens Con-
cerned for Life, Inc. My testimony is a statement on issues which
are relevant to the pro-life community of America.
ACCL is committed to work toward an America in which abortion
is not practiced because of respect for the life of the unborn child,
and abortion is not needed to solve the social, emotional, medical.
or personal problems of American women. The only exception to this
position is an abortion to save the life of the mother when no other
1 1 had no anesthetic prior to birth. Both births lasted four hours each ; they were not
induced.
164
method of medical treatment offers a reasonable promise of protect-
ing the lives of both the mother and the child.
A unique human individual comes into being at conception. In
order to protect this new life, ACCL supports the enactment of the
ible amendment to the Federal Constitution. We under-
R an amendment must contradict the Supreme Court de-
January 22, 1973, at several basic points: (1) The amend-
ment should prohibit the actions of private individuals which would
, v the Life of the unborn child; (2) the amendment should
the legal personhood of the child in the womb from the be-
ginning of its biological development; (3) the amendment must
allow the exceptional ease of abortion to prevent the death of the
motl
\( ( I. also commits itself to work toward a society where abortion
is not needed. We accept National, State, and local political leaders
as our partners in this effort. We believe they recognize, as we do,
that it should not be necessary to sacrifice the rights of the unborn
ler to alleviate poverty or to impose conditions in urban ghettos.
We do not accept as final a view of America which says that children
must grow up homeless or unwanted or abused if they are not
aborted. We do not believe that young women must lose their oppor-
tunities for education or employment because they have become preg-
nant. Therefore, we ask the Members of Congress to both protect
and enhance all human lives, and to join with us in developing the
following alternatives for dealing with the social and personal prob-
of women who are pregnant and distressed.
In the area of family life and childbirth education, both men and
women must understand the development of the newly conceived
life in the womb of a mother, and understand the woman's own
physiological, psychological, and interpersonal response to it, so they
can accept the fact of the new life and assume responsibility for it.
We encourage childbirth and family life education programs which
for both men and women, acceptance of their own bodies and
their own sexuality. These educational programs should be based on
jtandards of the communities in which they are taught, and
should involve the parents of students who are minors in the plan-
ning of the courses and selection of materials. The goals of such
tould be to develop positive standards of responsible sex-
uality and responsible parenthood. We look forward to the results
search which is designed to identify those factors which are
tial in a healthy family environment and designed to develop
improving the quality of American family life,
of family planning, women should be able to control
own reproductive functions and couples should be able to de-
termine the size of their family, so long as the means thev employ
t roy a newly conceived life or deny that new life its proper
We encourage research in reproductive biology to fur-
velop a varietv of family planning methods which are ap-
to people of different backgrounds and different beliefs,
30 '"' newly developed techniques are not intended or
abortifacients. Public family planning programs
8hould '" an integral part of comprehensive medical care,
165
and they should avoid indoctrination of the recipients into specific
contraceptive techniques which are preferred by certain agencies or
organizations. We object to any programs which involve penalties
or incentives that oblige social workers or health care personnel to
disseminate information which may not be desired by recipients of
public benefits, or that oblige these recipients to practice contracep-
tion.
In the area of birth defects, being different is no reason for not
being, and we reject eugenic feticide, that is, killing of the unborn,
or infanticide, that is killing of the newly born. We do approve and
encourage research into the causes of birth defects, if the purpose
of the research is to benefit both the individual involved and future
generations. Genetic counseling is accepted if the purpose is to enable
high-risk parents to responsibly choose not to have a family. We
encourage the elimination of disease rather than the elimination of
diseased individuals, and point to programs to eliminate potential
birth defects through rubella vaccination and through veneral dis-
ease treatment and prevention as just two examples. Detection and
monitoring of high-risk pregnancies is appropriate to enable prompt
pre- and post-natal treatment and rehabilitation. We encourage Fed-
eral agencies to carefully screen potentially teratogenic, that means
defect-causing, drugs. And we look forward to the development of
insurance programs which would defray catastrophic medical ex-
penses by paying benefits to the parents of children diagnosed as
having medical problems of a major degree. Such benefits should be
payable when the medical problems are diagnosed, whether during
the prenatal period or at any time after the birth of the child. We
support tax deductions for all adoptive parents, and incentives for
the adoption of exceptional children. We also encourage the develop-
ment of special educational programs for exceptional children, equal
work and social opportunities for them, consideration for them in the
designing of buildings and civic projects, and so on.
In the area of fetal experimentation, proper concern for the rights
of the unborn child need not bring medical research to a halt. New
therapeutic techniques can be used with the hope of proving them
superior to traditional methods of treatment, after adequate theo-
retical work and animal experimentation has been carried out. Par-
ents can give consent for experimental therapeutic treatment of the
unborn if there is a valid reason to believe that such treatment is in
the best interests of the child. In addition, organs may be trans-
planted from the dead fetus, and tissue cultures may be developed
from fetuses which are clinically judged to be dead according to the
same criteria which would be used for a born child or adult. We
recommend careful retrospective clinical and statistical study of de-
fective babies for identification of teratogenic drugs. However, this
is not the same thing as purposefully introducing known or suspected
harmful substances for research purposes into the live unborn child
or into his mother, which substances could cross the placental bar-
rier. Systematic benefit should not be derived from systematic in-
duced abortion. We do not approve of experiments which would be
judged cruel or senseless by the average sensitive layman. And par-
ents cannot consent to nontherapeutic research on unborn children
who are being purposely aborted.
166
In the area of euthanasia, by referring to personhood in the whole
nd the capability of meaningful life, we believe that the Su-
eme Court on January 22, 1973 opened the door to unfortunate
future decisions in the area of euthanasia. Therefore, we would like
to clarify, for the guidance of members of Congress, what we under-
,1 to be the important principles involved in the euthanasia
debate.
No. 1 : If properly understood, we take no exception to the idea
of a dignified death. By this, we mean allowing a terminal patient
die a truly humane death — to free the dying from the loneliness
ami alienation which may accompany the application of extraordi-
nary treatment where there is no hope of cure, no hope of restoration,
or continuation of life. However, this euthanasia does not involve
gleet of the dying patient, for he, like any other human being, is
entitled to medical care which is reasonable and prudent under the
circumstances involved.
No. 2: We oppose mercy killing, which is the intentional use of
medical technology to cause or to hasten death. Mercy killing can
include abandonment of a patient or withdrawal of ordinary — by
that we mean prudent — medical care, as for instance when mongo-
loid children are denied ordinary treatment for pneumonia.
\o. :; : We see a dangerous trend developing toward death selec-
tion. This death selection is killing as a medical management option.
It might be called managerial euthanasia, and involves defining cer-
tain classes of human beings as incapable of meaningful life and not
persons in the whole sense. Classes of individuals who may be subject
to such definitions are the habitual criminal, the aged, the seriously
mentally ill. the retarded, and so on.
Additional Programs: We favor mandatory maternity insurance
benefits for all women regardless of marital status. Needy mothers
iuld be eligible for AFDC payments for their unborn child as soon
as pregnancy is diagnosed and' continuing for the full duration of
pregnancy. The classification of illegitimate should be removed from
birth certificates. Low-cost housing should be made available to
parent families. Day care facilities should be available when
mothers must work to provide for themselves and their children.
! acilities should be widely available and controlled by the
community standards and administered by the citizens of the areas
in which they are located. Equal educational opportunities should
be available for pregnant women both during and following the
pregnancy, which education should include, in addition to the reg-
irriculum, training in parenting skills, education and job train-
md marriage counseling.
The preceding is meant to be a suggestive rather than an ex-
! programs we would like to encourage.
Bayh, you know what an extraordinary undertaking it is
ittempt to amend the Constitution on any subject, let alone on
ibortion. Tt will take an enormous organiza-
il effort and educational campaign to accomplish this task. We
- to amend the Constitution. Senator Bavh, because we are
to make the effort involved. Tn the process of bringing about
i revolution, we accept responsibilitv for helping to change the
167
conditions of life for women who are pregnant under unfortunate
circumstances, so that they need not resort to the choice of abortion.
We invite you and other members of the Judiciary Committee to join
with us in developing a suitable amendment to the Constitution to
protect the life of the unborn child, and to work with us for its
passage by two-thirds of the Senate. We likewise pledge to you our
support in passing legislation which will ameliorate the conditions
of disadvantaged and vulnerable pregnant women, children who need
special care and protection, and families who face exceptional prob-
lems in attempting to care for and raise their children. The pro-
life movement will be the partners and supporters of elected leaders
who are working for the protection and enhancement of all human
lives, and we will champion legislation to bring about these goals.
Thank you.
Senator Bayh. Thank you, Mr. Schaller. I noticed your presence
very continuously as we have studied this matter. I do not want to
open a Pandora's box but to try to help the committee and par-
ticularly the chairman, am I right in saying that you were previously
employed by or a part of the National Right to Life Committee?
Mr. Schaller. That is right.
Senator Bath. Would it be helpful in our study to quickly define
the differences that exist or would it not be helpful or necessary?
Mr. Schaller. I would be glad to make available to you in the
near future some program outlines of ACCL and to help you under-
stand the differences in the two organizations.
As you have all here observed there are several organizations in
the pro-life movement. Each organization has its own highest pri-
ority goals, although we certainly all share the same ultimate goal,
and that is to pass an amendment to protect the unborn child and
other defenseless human beings.
It is sometimes necessary for a division of effort in order to meet
several different kinds of goals or priorities of a short -term nature,
so people who are involved with me in ACCL are most concerned
right now to concentrate on organizational development across the
country. We also are concerned, as this testimony I think illustrates,
to develop a legislative program both on a national scale and for
the use of State legislators, which will illustrate in very specific
terms the concern of the Right to Life movement, not only for pro-
tection of the unborn and prohibition of the act of abortion but also
concern for the women and the families involved. We support im-
provements of society which we feel go hand-in-hand with protection.
That is a very short statement.
Senator Bath. I certainly appreciate those differences and if you
care to give us further details, I would be glad to incorporate them
in the record or read them for my own edification, whichevor you
prefer.
Mr. Schaller. I would like to stress, though, that I do not believe
this can be seen as an event which will weaken or fracture the Right
to Life movement. I do not think you can find anything much more
cohesive or militant than the Right to Life movement. You may have
noticed that.
Senator Bath. Well, at least the concern described as militancy,
if you care to, certainly is rather evident. I noted that you empha-
168
size the intensity of the feelings here in your closing remarks by
suggesting that this is a controversial amendment. I think beyond
that 11 is a rery complicated one. I know of no other amendment
that involves the scientific, legal, technical ramifications that this
<IIir '''
I certainly hope you appreciate that fact as well.
Mr. Schalleb. I certainly do.
Senator Bath. 1 will be in touch with you in the future.
Mr. Schalleb. I appreciate that very much, sir; thank you.
Senator Bath. The committee is now recessed, subject to the call
of the Chair.
| Whereupon, at 1 :40 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene
subject to the call of the Chair.]
169
ABORTION
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1974
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments
of the Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in room
318, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Birch Bayh (chairman
of the subcommittee), presiding.
Present: Senators Bayh (presiding), and Fong.
Also present: J. William Heckman, chief counsel; Abby Brezina,
chief clerk ; and Teddie Phillips, assistant clerk.
Senator Bayh. We will reconvene our hearings.
Apologies to our witnesses for my tardy arrival. I got nailed be-
fore I could get out of the office. I am sorry for the inconvenience it
may have caused you.
The first witness today, forming a panel, speaking for the Na-
tional Abortion Rights Action League, Ms. Pamela Lowry, executive
committee member of NARAL and director of constitutional defense
project, Massachusetts ; Dr. Jane Shoup, a member of the Coalition
for Freedom of Choice, the State of Indiana, Mrs. Dorothy Roude-
bush, chairperson, Committee for Legal Abortions, of Missouri.
I appreciate the fact that you will join us this morning.
Who wants to start.
STATEMENTS OF MS. PAMELA LOWRY, EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
MEMBER OF NARAL AND DIRECTOR OF CONSTITUTIONAL
DEFENSE PROJECT, MASSACHUSETTS; DR. JANE SHOUP, MEMBER
OF COALITION FOR FREEDOM OF CHOICE, INDIANA; DOROTHY
ROUDEBUSH, CHAIRPERSON, COMMITTEE FOR LEGAL ABOR-
TIONS, MISSOURI
Ms. Lowry. I think that I have been picked by straw vote to begin.
My name is Pam Lowry
Senator Bayh. Is that a two to one vote?
Ms. Lowry. I was stomped on this morning.
I think that was partly because I have been a veteran of testifying
before the Massachusetts Legislature and people felt anyone who had
braved the Massachusetts Legislature could start out this morning.
Senator Bayh. They say the same thing about Indiana.
Ms. Lowry. I am here representing the National Abortion Rights
Action League started in 1968. It is a group that is dedicated to pro-
tecting the right of choice for all women in the question of the bear-
ing of children. It is a broad coalition group.
(169)
170
I think too ofteD this issue is set up so people assume there are
only two sides and both are extremist. But I think there are a large
number of people who, while they are not particularly comfortable
with abortion and noi proabortion, are very strongly prochoice and
fore represent a very strong middle segment of society.
RAL used to be ("ailed the National Association to Repeal
irtion Laws, [ts purpose was to repeal restrictive laws across the
tttry. Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, it seemed very
ir that the name should be changed, that it was no longer neces-
i it any effort in legislative arenas concerning the right
3e ; but we were very obviously wrong, and I think that is
what brings us all here today.
1 have been involved in this field, family planning, sex education,
abortion, for about a decade. I started with the Planned Parent
gue of Massachusetts. I can remember on the first official day
that I spent there as a staff member, August 1, 1965, the executive
director went over and watched the Massachusetts general court de-
feat a bill which for the first time would have legalized contracep-
. The legislature voted to make it illegal for a physician to fit
a diaphragm or prescribe pills or even give contraceptive advice to
a 1". year-old mother. This was the way things were in that time.
Senator Bath. When was that?
Ms. Li 'wry. This was 1965. Just after the Griswald decision.
The legislature chose to ignore it, not because they as individuals
opposed birth control. We could count the numbers of senators and
representatives who voted against birth control whose wives we knew
re on the pill. It was very clear this was a vote giving in to a very
well organized, very vociferous religious lobby existing in Massachu-
. and known to exist there still.
Planned Parenthood concentrated on changing the contraceptive
laws. What was incredible was, at that time, the fact was that it was
i a legal abortion in Massachusetts than contraception.
Abortion was permitted under a restrictive the life of the mother
being imperiled. Yet her doctor could go to jail if he prescribed
contraception for her. Our concentration was making birth control
legal and available by changing the laws. Gradually change they did.
pie began to be less embarrassed to come forward to legal legiti-
mate sources of information and medical help, and things began to
open up.
I think it was inevitable that with this increased honesty and open-
somebody should eventually feel this might apply one step
further.
i young woman— T think she was about 27 vears old — she
B in uiied. with one very young child, walked into the Planned
Parenthood office and sat down and explained that, for her, it was
too late for contraception. Thev had used a method, it had failed
was pregnant. She knew that Planned Parenthood dealt
ith contraception, but could we help her, give her information, tell
ier where to go to gel an abortion? Well, this threw the staff into a
luandary. We did some research and within a week that
on a plane going to Japan. The onlv legal options open
physically healthy person were to either go behind the
< artam or t,, travel half wav around the world.
171
After this incident we informed our medical advisory committee.
They all lifted eyebrows, spoke with concern and felt that because
this was an issue of great controversy, we should go very, very
slowly on it. As soon as they got back to the offices, however, they
went through patient registers and started referring people to us
for trips to Japan.
I can appreciate the dilemma on the one hand feeling that it was
something nice people weren't involved in, and on the other hand,
feeling it was a great relief to have an out — for the patient.
So Planned Parenthood, much against its wishes, found itself in-
volved in referring cases for abortion out of the country and around
the world.
In 1968 the British changed their laws. They passed a fairly sweep-
ing reform act. It was a very, very liberal law. The cost of going to
London for an abortion was half that of going to Japan. For $800
you could get on the plane and go and get legal medical care. This
opened up a tremendous — a flood gate of people who felt that they
could somehow manage $800 and who came to Planned Parenthood
for help and information.
I can remember some of the cases that came in. Most of them are
generally a blur, and I am not sure how valuable it is to start talk-
ing about individual case histories. I am sure this committee has been
hit with everybody's life story. There are a few who stand out. I
don't know if you know Boston, but there was one woman from
South Boston who came in. She had five children and was married,
and she had never been outside the limits of Metropolitan Boston.
The farthest she had gone was on the MTA up to Revere Beach. She
had a morbid fear of flying. That woman got together her life sav-
ings and put her five children in the care of her sister and flew off to
London. It was an incredible thing to watch this happen. It was an
incredible thing to watch these people come in the door and see how
they had to pull their lives together and deal with this situation, and
on top of it deal with restrictive laws at home. Even more frus-
trating, the ones who, when you said $800, sat there in utter silence
and bewilderment, with tears in their eyes because there was nothing
they could do. These were the people who went back out of that
office and started the hunt for classic illegal abortions.
I will be honest, There were some half way decent, half way com-
petent illegal practitioners around at that time. There was a licensed
physician who was a surgeon and he worked out of Boston about 10
blocks away from a major Catholic maternity hospital. He charged
$650. If you wanted an anesthetic it was an additional $100.
There was a man in Newton who I once saw who was also a lic-
ensed physician. He was an alcoholic and he drank during procedures
in order to steady his hand; and so it went, down the rung of the
people who weren't physicians and so on. It was a terrible kind of
thing to witness.
People like me who had to sit and counsel them, and people across
the country who came in contact with situations like this really felt
moved to clo something. You either had to get out of it completely
and isolate yourself from the reality or do something to change it.
This is how groups like NAARL got started with men and women
57-782 O - 76 - 12
172
across the country, with somebody who was trapped by the discrim-
inatory laws who' felt, "we have to change this, it ]ust isnt fair.
( foe of the things we did in Boston was to get together a coalition
of clergymen, social workers, psychiatrists, family, planning experts
and physicians and set up a group called Pregnancy Counseling
Service which opened its doors the first month in 1970. This was 6
months before the New York law changed. In those months that
Pregnancy Counseling Service operated, primarily as an information
and referral center, it saw. before the New York law changed, 2,000
women. This was a fledgling operation, a fledgling organization, yet
in the first 6 months, we saw 2,000 women from all across Massachu-
setts; women also came down from Maine, from Vermont, from
( Jonnecticut. Forty percent of those women in the pre-New York era
went t.» London and had abortions there. Ten percent decided to con-
tinue with their pregnancy or had no option but to continue with
their pregnancy. Ten percent got abortions under therapeutic laws
that were beginning to loosen up in Massachusetts, California and
Washington, b.C, although it cost more to go to California than it
did to rlv to London. Forty percent of that caseload went illegally
or, as people say euphemistically, extra legally. With the advent
of the New York law, it was extraordinary what a difference it made.
Within 1 month there was not one more illegal case that came
through the office. There was not one more trip to London. It was
like. well, today's picture of the stock market. Certain referral cate-
gories went straight down. There were no more referrals to London,
no more illegal cases at all. Suddenly we were able to say, "no, you
don't have to leave the country; yoii only have to drive 200 miles."
It meant for the first time we were able to offer legal operations and
provide decent medical care for women who, in the past, had had no
options at all — unless you consider going to the pharmacist in Rox-
bury and getting little black pills as an option, or going to that hair
dresser in Quincy who used to do quite a job with a lye douche.
You get bombarded with statistics all the time, so I won't quote
the numbers, but I really think the change that we witnessed was
our that is just very hard to put into words. The statistical tables
that are released by the Center for Disease Control and things that
come out of U.S. Public Health Service say it, I think, in figures and
in numbers. What we saw was the human side of it, and that was
just extraordinary.
With the Supreme Court riding we made yet another dramatic
leap. People who were involved in health care, welfare services, social
ices, counseling, and medicine all across the country breathed a
tremendous sigh of relief when that ruling came down. We had seen
a lot of problems in referring women to resources that were 200 miles
'v or, since I am just speaking for Massachusetts, for many peo-
]>'>■ who were literally thousands of miles away. You don't get quality
medical 'ate when you have to go that far to be placed under a doc-
tor*- advice. I think all of us were greatly relieved and we sat back
and -aid. "thank heavens. We tio longer have to do battle, we can
on with the business of providing just basic, decent health care."
Well, obviously, we spoke too soon. Very quickly there arose sev-
groups particularly a great alliance between extremely con-
173
servative organizations and authoritarian religious groups — which
joined forces to try to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. I
think the really sad thing is that the focus of these groups who may
be very sincerely and thoughtfully opposed to abortion has been on
people like you, has been on the legislature, has been in the form
of filing bills and attaching riders and trying to amend the U.S.
Constitution, because the reality is that an antiabortion victory, if
you want to call it that, that comes out of oppressive legislation is a
very hollow one. It serves only those who are truly vindictive, be-
cause a legislative change isn't going to stop abortions. There are
very few people who could honestly come before you and suggest
that making abortion illegal is really going to make a significant
difference.
Senator Bath. Let me deal with that question. One of you or all
three of you.
We have had figures printed that show there has been an increase.
How significant an increase depends on whose figures one relies on,
but at least the number of abortions that we know about have gone
up significantly. It is, of course, always difficult to nail down the
number of illegal abortions.
Is it your opinion that there would be no difference in the num-
bers, that there might not be a good number of women who didn't
have the $800 when forced to look at that test of doing something
illegal or dangerous, might decide to have the child; do you have any
data?
Ms. Lowry. Well, I think we have probably seen the same studies.
I would agree with what you say. I think there has been an indication
that legally situation has made a difference and that certain groups
have gotten abortions that would not in the past have gotten abor-
tions.
Senator Bath. Perhaps I should ask you too — it might be more
helpful and easier on you to confine your answer to that question to
the statistical area that you are familiar with. What about Massachu-
setts? What data do you have about illegal abortions before? and
the number of abortions that are performed now?
Ms. Lowry. I have one piece that covers really New York rather
than Massachusetts and one — I will have to say undocumented im-
pression from our own group in Massachusetts. A significant study
was done by Dr. Tietze in New York that indicated that certain
groups, the very young and older women were getting abortions that
would not have in the past. We, of course, saw this in the Pregnancy
Counseling Service in Boston.
The people under restrictive laws who did not get abortions, yet
who wanted them were usually the 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds
who didn't come to the office until they were literally 19 and 20 weeks
extraordinary situations where the parents didn't know that the
girl was pregnant, even though to anybody else looking at her, she
was obviously pregnant. The very young teenager who was terrified
to tell anybody, who reallv just hoped it would go away, and really
didn't say anything until it was too late. For this kind of person, at
19 weeks', to go to an illegal abortionist is to invite death right there.
An illegal abortionist just wouldn't touch a pregnancy that far
174
along To have a hospital-based, second trimester abortion is not, I
can't say, the worlds simplest procedure, but it is done and in fact
the second trimester procedures tend to be on the very young, so I
think it would be fair to say there has been a transition— that before
the laws changed that particular segment did not get abortions.
The trouble is. if we turned back, what would happen? We have
thousands oi physicians who have dealt with abortion as a medical
rather than a legal issue. They have seen it as an integral part of
medical 'are. Could you plunge that whole group back into the Dark
Aires I I think that 'one could probably say that in an area where
hoi was unavailable and you suddenly legalized alcohol you
might see an increase in consumption. Where it was generally avail-
able and you banned it. given the people who knew how to make
bathtub gin, I wonder. I wonder, looking at prohibition particularly,
whether one would go back
Senator Bath. I am not too sure, although some of that bathtub
gin was powerful stuff and had a powerful impact on people, I am
not too sure the impact on people of drinking a little illegal booze
was the same thing as a person having an illegal abortion.
Ms. Lowry. Xot at all, but I draw on this image as a parellel in
terms of human nature. The fact is, from our experience, women who
want to have an abortion will have an abortion come hell or high
water. What really happens is, if you make a law restrictive you
don't change that fact. You certainly effect the circumstances. You
can set up a very punitive system so that people who get abortions
will have them under the worst possible circumstances, but they will
have them. That is a subjective statement and I realize you are bom-
barded with subjective statements.
I feel there is a better way for people who are concerned about
abortions and don't like abortions or are sensitive to the difficult
moral questions that abortions present to attack this. I think that
there are lots of ways that we can really fight abortions.
Senator Bayh. How?
Ms. Lowry. Well, starting with the field that I am most interested
in. family planning and sex education should receive the widest pos-
sible support. T know some people have trouble with their religious
backgrounds and birth control. So there are other approaches as
well.
Senator Bayh. Wo are dealing here with an area that — take poli-
out of it. if it is possible for somebody who is running for re-
election to do so. After the election there will be no question about
my ability to do that. But try as I have to look at it objectively, I
have never fared anything that has even approximated this issue
in combining a deep moral fervor, and on both sides. Those who are
talking about the right to choose in this country and the people who
b ■«•! thai that is taking life feel very strongly about it. I can certainly
understand that from my own personal standpoint.
The scientific medical-legal question is very complex. So here we
asked to get the Government involved in trving to sort this out,
whhh ie a very, very difficult thing to do. I ask this question only
because the Government is being asked bv some to sort this out, not
175
that I feel that the Government has any position to sort out the
question I am about to address to you.
First of all, let me say I don't believe the Government has a role
in trying to determine bedroom practices dealing with the differences
that some people have about the morality or immoralities of certain
types of birth control methods, short of abortion.
Have you noticed any change in the attitudes that prevailed earlier
relative to the immorality of using certain kinds of birth control?
Has there been a movement toward feeling maybe we can bend a
little bit and accept certain types of birth control as being better
than the abortions?
Ms. Lowrt. Oh, yes. I think there is no question but that birth
control is now used by members of religious groups that have tra-
ditionally opposed contraception. While the hierarchy may still stand
in that position, the hierarchy isn't going to deal with the results
of the problem. Certainly most young people with education are
strongly in favor of contraception and birth control, and that usage
by certain religious groups which have a traditional posture against
it is actually identical to use by groups that don't have that religious
background. I think that is very significant.
I think another thing, in addition to the changing values and
attitudes on contraception, is that the women's movement of the sup-
port by the general populace of the improvement of women and their
image of themselves and their options has been every bit as good a
contraceptive and contraceptive motivator as have birth control pills.
I think motivation is a key thing here. If you are going to fight abor-
tion you have got to look at why people get pregnant if they don't
want to get pregnant, and, too. why people who get pregnant feel
compelled to terminate it because of external circumstances. We have
a classic image of who this person is, who is pregnant, and who is
seeking an abortion, and we settle on an 18-year-old college student,
but the reality is that this is not the typical case. Our society is not
very tolerant of the 35-year-old mother who has four children who
is pregnant and wants to go through with this pregnancy and give
the baby up for adoption. Our society is very, very punitive to that
person. She is a "bad" mother. She is a "terrible" mother. She doesn't
like her child enough to keep it. What kind of dreadful person must
she be. So this woman is faced not with the choice of continuing the
pregnancy and giving up for adoption, or continuing and keeping,
and terminating. She is faced with the question "can she live in her
neighborhood or not," and if she personally feels she cannot handle
a fourth child she doesn't have the option of giving it up for adop-
tion, not because of the law but because of the attitude. I think avo
can work to change these broad punitive attitudes — anything. It is
the whole gambit; it is better education; better welfare rights: bettor
health care, all of these things that make people feel they can't have
one more child. I think that is something everybody should bo able
to work for. That is the direction we have to go in. Wo cannot go
back to the days where a woman in Portland, Maine, had to get up
at 2 a.m. to go to a clinic in New York for a 10:30 appointment and
then to turn around and get back on that bus and ride for 7 hours
to get back to her home town after an abortion procedure. We just
176
can't go back to that We can't go back to the time before that, when
women who could raise $800 or $1,500, traveled to London or Japan
and the women would couldn't get that kind of money went under-
ground and went down the back alleys. We can't go back that way
again. ,
I hope we never go back to the way it was 10 years ago, when,
with sisT in my pocket. I walked down the lower end of Massachu-
setts Ave., the seedy side of the town, the seedy side of the tracks—
1 won't go into all of the details, but it ended up in a chiropractors
office and it is the kind of experience which changes your life. It
changed mine. It made me feel very strongly that whatever energies
1 had, whatever education I had, what skills I had, had to be put
toward making sure that no other woman would ever have to do it
the way I did it: prevention, wherever possible, in all ways possible,
but there had to be options for people like me.
1 realize this is a politically sensitive issue. I realize you must be
under pressure, but I really hope that what comes through from
these hearings, from the letters that come in to you and even from
a sense of what people are thinking, what the majority of people
think, that you can perceive there are good arguments on both sides
and can respect those arguments and particularly can support a U.S.
Supreme Court riding which echoed that respect and which was not
proabortion, but prochoice — which set down as the law of the land a
ruling which said that each and every individual should be free to
follow Ids or her most sincere conscience and religious beliefs in that
matter free from coercion or interference by the U.S. Government.
That is all 1 have to say.
\I-. Km mm si i. Thank you, Senator Bayh, for permitting me to
speak with you about this serious matter in an atmosphere that is
deliberative and trustful. I commend you for the many hearings you
have held relative to these proposed amendments and the spirit of
fairness and honest inquiry with which they have been conducted.
1 am Mrs. George Roudebush of St. Louis, Mo., president of the
committee for legal abortion in Missouri. Our citizens' group was
formed in 1969, at first to establish in Missouri the legal right of any
woman to secure a safe abortion; and to protect that right, after
the Supreme Court decision of January 22, 1973, affirmed it. Our
committee is affiliated with the National Abortion Rights Action
League, of which 1 am a director.
My interest in many aspects of family planning and maternal
health extends over many years and has led me into many activities.
I am currently on the board of directors of the Planned Parenthood
ociation <>i' St. Louis, and on its Speakers' Bureau. In the sixties
I headed a citizens' committee to initiate birth control services in
public health institution of the city and county. Subsequently I
chaired a coalition task force bringing together agencies in the field
which has now developed into the St. Louis Metropolitan Area
Council for Voluntary Family Planning, Inc. These activities all
M from my abiding belief that women are entitled to know how to
manage their reproductive life, for their good, for the good of their
children, for the well-being of society. My concern tells further that
they must have access to the best possible medical services and re-
177
liable information within their financial reach to plan their child-
bearing — always on a voluntary basis. While my activities in the
field of family planning have been exclusively as a volunteer, I am
professionally trained as a counselor, having received the M.A. de-
gree in that specialty from Washington University as recently as
1968. Let me anticipate your possible questions and add that : I am
married to a lawyer, we are the parents of three grown children, and
the grandparents of three. I am a lay reader in the Episcopal Church.
Obviously, with this background and experience, I speak not as an
expert — you have heard from many in many fields — but as an active
citizen. I intend to limit my remarks to the question before the com-
mittee which is, I understand: Shall the Federal Constitution be
amended to deny women the right to choose whether to continue
pregnancy, a right upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in
January of 1973. I hope to focus on the moral issue surrounding the
right of privacy and freedom of conscience for the individual woman.
Our committee supports the decision of the court and continues
to believe that it represents a compromise in that it leaves open and
available the option of abortion, yet imposes it on no woman. The
court recognized that a woman is more than a reproductive unit — to
use a label applied by one of our opponents whom you have heard
here, that she is a person of dignity, competent to make decisions
about the most intimate aspect of her life. The court opinion frees
her to act according to her best judgment — and she will aways choose
the greater good as she see it. Her childbearing is not to be dictated
by the State ; before the court ruled, legislatures could hold that a
woman must bear that child, once pregnant. For compulsion by legis-
latures, the Supreme Court decision substitutes the judgment of the
individual woman ; she is given the privilege to choose according to
her own reason and moral sense. Surely this is the way we have
traditionally dealt with moral choices in our free society — with high
regard for a wide diversity of views. There is nothing in the Supreme
Court decision that prohibits a woman from acting in according with
the moral teachings of her church, nor from seeking counsel with
any other source of help that she respects. The moral and ethical
teachings she received will be factors in her decision, of course. The
kind of teaching that will reduce the need for abortion might be a
more constructive program for those against abortion rights than
attacking the U.S. Supreme Court. I am speaking of early instruc-
tion in sexuality and values of family planning in the schools, in-
volving parents ideally. The goal of such courses should be to "de-
velop positive standards of responsible sexuality and responsible
parenthood"— to quote from the Keverend Warren Schaller whom
you heard for the opposition on August 21.
Our position that the abortion decision is rightfully the woman s
is far from advocating abortion. And it is a long way from giving the
States the power to compel a woman to go through with an undesired
pregnancy; or the power to compel a woman to terminate it. This
fear of government control is very real to our opponents. Yet ex-
perience in other countries does not justify that fear. For example.
Sweden and Denmark legalized abortion in the 1930's, Japan in 194S.
Nothing like imposed euthanasia, or compulsory sterilization, or gov-
178
eminent dictation of family size has occurred. The enormity of
Hitlei idal programs is often cited. Yet the fact is that under
Hitler. Germany passed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in
v. making even the act of assisting in an abortion a penal
offen . .
ther objection that is made to the Supreme Court decision is
that it has reduced the powers of the State to legislate. I do not
understand this argument. In the first place, a State reasonably regu-
late the abortion procedure for the protection of maternal health
after the firsl trimester — during which the decision must be left to
the woman and her doctor. Second, the State's power to prohibit
abortion after viability is upheld, provided that continuation of the
pregnancy docs not threaten the life or health of the woman. What
more restrictive provision can there be that does not abridge the right
of the individual woman? T n holding as it did, the Court was not
usurping the authority of the legislatures. It simply pointed out the
limits of the constitutional rights of the pregnant woman, and thus
of the States authority to legislate.
The States have shown down the years a legitimate interest in the
health of women through enactment of medical practice statutes,
through penalties for the illicit practice of medicine, through guide-
developed by the appropriate professional agencies. It is not
clear to us that additional legislation at any level is needed. We pre-
fer that the law remain silent on the subject. A statement from the
late Father .John Courtney Murray, one of the principal architects
of the Second Vatican Council on Religious Freedom, seems pertinent
here :
Laws should seek to maintain only that minimum of actualized morality that
Is necessary for the healthy functioning of the social order. Is is prudent to
undertake the enforcement of this or that ban ... in view of the possible harm-
ful effects in other areas of social life? Is the instrumentality of coercive law
us for the eradication of this or that social vice?
This statement of principle relates directly, I believe, to the divisive
which con fionts ns. Dissatisfaction with the Court's decision has
precipitated a controversy marked by a rancor and fanaticism that
are regrettable at a time in the Nation's history when we need to
draw closer together. These destructive feelings will surely intensify
and a disastrous cleavage result if the proposed amendments pass the
nd go to the States for ratification. It is saddening to think
h a cruel eventuality. Of all aspects of a woman's life that
should be supportively surrounded with compassion and sensitivity
n is her childbearing. In this man's world— for so it still is — we turn
I for that kind of understanding. We ask you to turn down the
constitutional measures before you.
reproductive discretion is our objective— and this is well
I in the Supreme Court decision— we do not believe that we need
tion on other issues with which our adversaries would like
te us. However, there are two points that I feel obliged to
ii rebuttal to arguments 1 know you have heard here. The first
9 thai we advocate abortion as a method of contraception. As I have
said, we are not advocating abortion, but a woman's right to choose.
I- urthermore, abortion is by definition not a contraceptive method; it
r conception has occurred. We do not regard it as a sub-
179
stitute for the practice of contraception, but as a remedy for failed
contraception or a lack of prudence or simply innocence of human
biology. In the perfect world, there will be no need for abortion, for
we will have a fail-proof contraceptive universally employed and
every pregnancy will be planned. Hasten the day. The other criticism
directed at us which I would like to answer is that we are depriving
adoptive parents of children to adopt. At least that is the way I read
our adversaries' bumper stickers. In the first place, it seems to me that
adoption was devised originally to provide homes for children who
had none. Have we not switched things around so that unwilling
women must be compelled by the State to deliver children for adults
who cannot have their own? What a diabolical use of a woman.
Perhaps this is the function the speaker had in mind in referring to
women as "a reproductive unit"! Furthermore, to require by law
that a woman go through with an unwanted pregnancy and then
compound her misery by offering as a solution the relinquishing of
the child seems to me utterly heartless. As to the supply of children
available for adoption, I should like to quote from a release from the
Children's Bureau of the Department of Health, Education, and Wel-
fare dated April 19, 1974 ; headed "Statistics Pertaining to Children
in Need of Abortion" :
Although there are no firm statistics as to the number available, it is known
that the vast majority of children for whom adoption might be suitable are
over 6 years of age, are physically, mentally, or emotionally handicapped, or
are in large family groups where the children should not be separated.
Recent estimates of the number of children who could profit by adoption indi-
cate that there might be about 100,000, most of whom are currently in foster
care.
This information seems to me to speak against the argument that
women should be compelled to go through with unwanted pregnancies
to supply children for adoption.
Reproductive freedom is our objective. It is abridged without ac-
cess to abortion, a right upheld by the Supreme Court decision.
Women do have problem pregnancies.
I have here included the report of two cases that have recently
come to my attention.
One, a 40-year-old mother of four planned children, another a 17-
year-old college freshman. I think in the interest of time I will not
read those, since you have heard numerous cases recited here by Pam
Lowry.
Senator Bath. We will in the record. Yes, they are in your text.
Ms. Rouderbtjsh. Let me tell you about two cases that have recently
eome to my attention.
A 40-year-old mother of four planned children finds herself preg-
nant, despite the practice of contraception. Her husband has been
handicapped in such a way that he can no longer work. She lias taken
a job to supplement his' meager compensation and help meet the
mounting expense of education for her children. This is possible for
her now that the youngest child is in school most of the day. The
prospect of going' through a potentially dangerous, late pregnancy
to deliver an unwanted infant is devastating to her. Added to which
is the insoluble problem of family finances if she quits work to bring
up a child. Should she not have tlie right to choose to have a medically
180
safe abortion? Or does society feel it can make a judgment for her
and condemn her and the child to a dismal future? By what author-
ity can we make that judgment?
Or another case. A 17-year-old college freshman on a scholarship,
overwhelmed by her new liberties, has too much beer at her first all-
night party, and finds three weeks later that she is pregnant. She
comes from a family where sex was not discussed, from a school with
taboos against any kind of instruction in family planning, froma
community just getting underway with birth control clinics that will
treat minors. What now are her' alternatives? Society afforded poor
ones before the Supreme Court decision legalized abortion. Let's look
at them. There is marriage — if she could be sure which boy was
responsible and coerce him. Percentage of success for those marriages
is very low. She might go to another city, have the child and put
it out for adoption. This would mean giving up her scholarship,
giving up college, maybe forever. Giving up an infant. She might keep
the child and raise it alone. Would her mother be overjoyed to take
<are of that out-of-wedlock child while the teenager went out to work
to support it? Then there are the desperate alternatives — like at-
tempting brutal self-abortion, or even suicide. How can a humane
society take away from this young woman the option of safe, legal
abortion available now under the Supreme Court decision? How
would a return to the days of the back-alley operator serve this
woman -or the common good? We need to ask ourselves whether it
i- not lather our vindicative craving to punish that would be served.
In Missouri safe, legal abortion is available— subject to recently
imposed restrictions which we deplore and which are not being chal-
lenged in court cases. Women who choose this solution to a problem
pregnancy can he treated at clinics in the St. Louis area, at Columbia,
and in the Kansas City area. Some 7,300 women chose this solution
in 1973, according to figures released by the Missouri Center for
Health Statistics — although some of them had to go out of the State
for treatment. There is no reliable way of comparing this figure with
the number of illegal abortions done prior to January 22, 1973. Be-
cause they were outside the law they were not recorded, for the
protection of the woman, her family. "her physician. Deaths related
to criminal abortion were ascribed to septicemia or hemorrhage, for
the same reason. The view that the option of safe, legal abortion must
remain available as made possible by the Court's decision is gaining
adherents in Missouri. Our membership grows daily, as do financial
donations. Support among the professional groups is evidenced in
our letterhead: We have advisory groups of medical specialists — in-
cluding the chief of the department of obstetrics and gvnecologv at
Washington University in St. Louis— and of clergymen — including
'lie bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri. A dozen or more
influential organizations, several with statewide memberships, have
I us in support of liberalized abortion laws and of the Supreme
( '"'I it decision. Von have a list attached to your script, T believe.
Let me say, however, that even if there were not such general sup-
port tor the Court, even if we are to he in the minority, our rights
I would deserve the protection of the Constitution. We resist the
>!itv that a crusade mounted primarily by a religious group
seeking implementation in the civil law of their sectarian belief
181
could deprive us of our constitutional rights. We therefore ask that,
as you deliberate, you put first the rights of women and assure us
that you value our capacity to make wise judgments in this most
personal decision, where individual conscience must govern.
I like the way Bishop George Cadigan expressed his views some 3
years ago :
Proposed legalization of abortion in the State of Missouri has precipitated
violent debate which has focused disproportionately on the acceptability or un-
acceptability of this means of solving an undesired pregnancy. Regard for the
sancitity of life has been repeatedly invoked, as if only some of us valued, or
appreciated, the true worth of human life * * *
The "Tightness" or "wrongness" of abortion * * * is not the critical issue
here. The issue is the larger ethical one : Can any one of us stand in the role
of judge for the personal decisions of others? What robes shall we wear?
Greater than the debatable immorality of terminating an undesired pregnancy
is the immorality of refusing a woman access to medical help when she has
determined that she needs it. A law that compels a woman to continue an
undesired pregnancy is evil — as evil as a law that would compel her to have
an abortion.
If there is any single thought that I would like to leave with you
it is : that pregnancy is a deeply significant event in a woman's life.
The decision to terminate a pregnancy is equally significant. The
woman must be trusted to make that decision and have the freedom
to act upon it without interference by the State.
That concludes my testimony.
[The testimony of Mrs. George S. Roudebush follows:]
Testimony of Mrs. George S. Roudebush, Board of Directors of
National Abortion Rights Action League
Senator Bayh and members of the Committee: Thank you very much for
the opportunity to speak with you about this serious matter in an atmosphere
that is deliberate and trustful. I commend you for the many hearings you
have held relative to these proposed amendments and the spirit of fairness
and honest inquiry with which they have conducted.
I am Mrs. George Roudebush of St. Louis, Mo., president of the Committee
for Legal Abortion in Missouri. Our citizens' group was formed in 1969, at
first to establish in Missouri the legal right of any woman to secure a safe
abortion ; and to protect that right, after the Supreme Court decision of Jan-
uary 22, 1973, affirmed it. Our Committee is affiliated with the National Abor-
tion Rights Action League, of which I am a director.
My interest in many aspects of family planning and maternal health extends
over many years and has led me into many activities. I am currently on the
Board of Directors of the Planned Parenthood Association of St. Louis, and on
its Speakers' Bureau. In the sixties I headed a citizens' committee to initiate
birth control services in public health institutions of the city and county. Sub-
sequentlv I chaired a coalition task force bringing together agencies in the
field, which has now developed into the St. Louis Metropolitan Area Council
for voluntary Family Planning, Inc. These activities all stem from my abiding
belief that women are entitled to know how to manage their reproductive life,
for their good, for the good of their children, for the well-being of society. My
concern tells me further that they must have access to the best possible medical
services and reliable information within their financial reach to plan their
child-bearing— always on a VOLUNTARY basis. While my activities in the
field of family planning have been exclusively as a volunteer, I am profession-
ally trained as a counselor, having received the M.A. degree in that speciality
from Washington Universitv as recently as 1968. Let me anticipate your
possible questions and add that : I am married to a lawyer, we are the parents
of three grown children, and the grandparents of three. I am a lay reader in
the Episcopal Church.
With this background and experience, I obviously speak not as an expert—
you have heard from many in many fields— but as an active citizen. I intend
182
to limit inv remarks to the question before the Committee which is, I under-
stand shall t!i»' Federal ('(institution be amended to deny women the right
to choose whether to continue pregnancy, a right upheld by the U.S. Supreme
(Curt decision In .January of 1073. I hope to focus on the moral issue sur-
rounding the righl of privacy and freedom of conscience for the individual
woman. „ ...
Our Committee supports the decision of the Court and continues to believe
thai it represents a compromise in that it leaves open and available the option
of abortion, yet Imposes it on no woman. The Court recognized that a woman
la more than "a reproductive unit"— to use a label applied by one of our op-
ponents; that Bhe Is a poison of dignity, competent to make decisions about the
most intimate aspect of her life. The Court opinion frees her to act according
to BBB best judgment (and she will always choose the greater good as she sees
: t i Her child-bearing is not to be dictated by the state; before the Court ruled,
ores held that a woman must bear a child, once pregnant. For compul-
sion by Legislatures, the Supreme Court decision substitutes the judgment of
the individual woman; SHE is given the privilege to choose according to her
own reason and moral sense. Surely this is the way we have traditionally dealt
with moral choices in our free society— with high regard for our diverse views.
There is nothing in the Supreme Court decision that prohibits a woman from
acting in the accord with the moral teaching of her church, nor from seeking
counsel with any other source of help that she respects. The moral and ethical
teachings she received will be factors in her decision, inescapably. The kind of
teaching that will reduce the need for abortion might be a more constructive
program for those against abortion rights than attacking the Court. I am speak-
Ing of early instruction in sexuality and values of family planning in the schools,
Involving parents ideally. The goal of such courses should be to "develop posi-
tive standards of responsible sexuality and responsible parenthood" — to quote
from the Rev. Warren Schaller whom you heard for the opposition on August
L'lst.
our position that the abortion decision is rightfully the woman's is far from
advocating abortion. And it is a long way from giving the states the power to
compel a woman to go through with an undesired pregnancy; or the power to
compel a woman to terminate it. This fear of government control is very real
to our opponents. Yet experience in other countries does not justify that fear.
For example. Sweden and Denmark legalized abortion in the 1930's, Japan in
1948. Not hint' like imposed euthanasia, or compulsory Sterilization, or govern-
in. Tit limitation of family size has occurred. The enormity of Hitler's genoeidal
programs is often cited. Vet the fact is that under Hitler, Germany passed one
of the most restrictive abortion laws in history, making even the act of assist-
ing in an abortion a penal offense!
Another objection that is made to the Supreme Court decision is that it has
reduced the powers of the state to legislate. I do not understand this argument.
In the tirst place, a state may reasonably regulate the abortion procedure for
i he protection of maternal Health after the first trimester (during which the de-
cision must be left to the woman and her doctor). Secondly, the state's power
t" prohibit abortion after viability is upheld, provided that continuation of the
pregnancy does not threaten the life or health of the woman. What more re-
strictive provision can there be that does not abridge the right of the individual
woman'.' In holding as it did. the Court was not usurping the authority of the
legislatures. It simply pointed out the limits of the constitutional rights of the
pregnant woman, and thus of the states' authority to legislate.
The states have shown legitimate interest in the health of women through
enactment of medical practise statutes, through penalties for the illicit practise
of medicine, througb guidelines developed by the appropriate professional
agencies, il i- nol clear that additional legislation at any level is needed. We
prefer that the law be silent on the subject. A statement' from the late Father
John Courtney Murray, one of the principal architects of the Second Vatican
Council on Religious Freedom, seems pertinent here:
Should -eek to maintain only that minimum of actualized morality
that is necessary for the healthy functioning of the social order. Is it prudent
to undertake the enforcement of this or that ban ... in view of the possible
harmful effects in other areas of social life? Is the instrumentality of coercive
law a good means f«.r the eradication of this or that social vice?"
This Btatemenl of principle relates directly. I believe, to the devisive issue
which confronts us. Dissatisfaction with the Court's decision has precipitated
183
a controversy marked by a rancor and fanaticism that are regrettable at a time
in the nation's history when we need to draw closer together. These destructive
feelings will surely intensify and a disastrous cleavage result if the proposed
amendments pass the Congress and go to the states for ratification. It is sad-
dening to think of such a cruel eventuality. Of all aspects of a woman's life
that should be supportively surrounded with compassion and sensitivity it is
her childbearing. In this man's world — for so it still is — we turn to you for
that kind of understanding. We ask you to turn down the constitutional mea-
sures before you.
Since reproductive discretion is our objective (and this is well served in the
Supreme Court decision) we do not believe that we need state a position on
other issues with which our adversaries would like to associate us. However,
there are two points that I feel obliged to make in rebuttal to arguments that
you have heard here. The first is that we advocate abortion as a method of
contraception. As I have said, we are not advocating abortion, but a woman's
right to choose abortion. Furthermore, abortion is by definition not a contra-
ceptive method ; it is used after conception has occurred. We do not regard it
as a substitute for the practise of contraception, but as a remedy for failed
contraception or a lack of prudence or innocence of human biology. In the per-
fect world, there will be no need for abortion, for we will have a fail-proof
contraceptive universally employed and every pregnancy will be planned. The
other criticism directd at us which I would like to answer is that we are de-
priving adoptive parents of children to adopt. At least that is the way I read
our adversaries' bumper stickers. In the first place, it seems to me that adoption
was devised originally to provide homes for children who had none. Have we
now switched things around so that unwilling women must deliver children for
adults who cannot have their own? What a diabolical use of a woman. Perhaps
this is the function the speaker had in mind in referring to woman as "a re-
productive unit" ! Furthermore, to require by law that a woman go through
with an unwanted pregnancy and then compound her misery by offering as a
solution the relinquishing of the child seems to me utterly heartless. As to the
supply of children available for adoption, I should like to quote from a release
from the Children's Bureau of the Department of Health, Education, and Wel-
fare dated April 19, 1974 ; headed Statistics Pertaining to Children in Need of
Adoption:
"Although there are no firm statistics as to the number available, it is known
that the vast majority of children for whom adoption might be suitable are
over 6 years of age, are physically, mentally, or emotionally handicapped, or
are in large family groups where the children should not be separated.
"Recent estimates of the number of children who could profit by adoption in-
dicate that there might be about 100,000, most of whom are currently in foster
care."
This information seems to me to speak against the argument that women
should be encouraged to go through with unwanted pregnancies to supply chil-
dren for adoption.
Reproductive freedom is our objective. It is abridged without access to abor-
tion, a right upheld by the Supreme Court decision. Women do have problem
pregnancies. Let me tell you about two cases that have recently come to my
attention.
A 40-year-old mother of four planned children finds herself pregnant, despite
the practise of contraception. Her husband has been handicapped in such a way
that he can no longer work. She has taken a job to supplement his meager com-
pensation and help meet the mounting expense of education for her children.
This is possible for her now that the youngest child is in school most of the day.
The prospect of going through a potentially dangerous, late pregnancy to deliver
an unwanted infant is devastating to her. Added to which is the insoluble
problem of family financies if she quits work to bring up a child. Should she
not have the right to choose to have a medically-safe abortion? Or does society
feel it can make a judgment for her and condemn her and the child to a dismal
future? By what authority can we make that judgment?
Or another case. A 17-year-old college freshman on a scholarship, over-
whelmed by her new liberties, has too much beer at her first all-night party,
and finds three weeks later that she is pregnant. She comes from a family whore-
sex was not discussed, from a school with taboos against any kind of instruc-
tion in family planning, from a community just getting underway with birth
control clinics that will treat minors. What now are her alternatives? Society
afforded poor ones before the Supreme Court decision legalized abortion. Let s
184
] ( ,ok at them. There la marriage — if she could be sure which boy was responsible
and <"tnv him. Percentage of success for those marriages is very low. She
might go to another city, have the child and put it out for adoption. This would
in. an giving np her scholarship, giving up college, maybe forever. Giving up an
infant. She might keep the child and raise it alone. Would her mother be
overjoyed to take care of that out-of-wedlock child while the teen-ager went
ont to work to support it? There there are the desperate alternatives — like
attempting brutal self-abortion, or even suicide. How can a humane society
take away from this young woman the option of safe, legal abortion available
now under the Supreme Court decision? How would a return to the days of the
back-alley operator serve this woman — or the common good? We need to ask
ourselves whether it is not rather our vindictive craving to punish that would
lie served.
In Missouri safe, legal abortion is available — subject to recently imposed re-
Btrictions which we deplore and, which are now being challenged in court cases.
Women who choose this solution to a problem pregnancy can be treated at
clinics in the St. Louis area, at Columbia, and in the Kansas City area. Some
7300 women chose this solution in 1973, according to figures released by the
Missouri Center for Health Statistics (although some of them had to go out of
the state for treatment ). There is no reliable way of comparing this figure with
the Dumber of Illegal ahortions done prior to January 22, 1973. Because they
utside the law they were not recorded, for the protection of the woman,
her family, her physician. Deaths related to criminal abortion were ascribed
to septicemia or hemorrhage, for the same reason. The view that the option of
safe. le>, r al abortion must remain available as made possible by the Court's
decision is gaining adherents in Missouri. Our membership grows daily, as do
financial donations. Support among the professional groups is evidenced in our
letterhead: we have advisory groups of medical specialists (including the chief
of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University in
St. Louis) and of clergymen (including the Bishop of The Episcopal Diocese
of Missouri). A dozen or more influential organizations, several with state-wide
memberships, have joined us in support of liberalized abortion laws and of the
Supreme Court decision.
Let me say that even if there were not such general support for the Court,
even if we are to he in the minority, our rights still would deserve the pro-
tection of the constitution. We resist the possibility that a crusade mounted
primarily by a religious group seeking implementation in the civil law of their
sectarian belief could deprive us of our constitutional rights. We therefore ask
that, as you deliberate, you put first the rights of women and reassure us that
you value our capacity to make wise judgments in this most personal decision,
where individual conscience must govern.
I like the way Bishop George Cadigan expressed his views some three years
ago :
"Proposed legalization of abortion in the state of Missouri has precipitated
violent debate which has focused disproportionately on the acceptability or
unaceeptability of this means of solving an undesired pregnancy. Regard for
the sanctity of life has heen repeatedly invoked, as if only some of us valued,
or appreciated, the true worth of human life . . .
•The 'lightness' or 'wrongness' of abortion ... is not the critical issue here.
The issue is the larger ethical one: can any one of us stand in the role of
Judge for the personal decisions of others? What robes shall we wear? Greater
than the debatable immorality of terminating an undesired pregnancy is the
immorality of refusing a woman access to medical help when she has deter-
mined that she needs it. A law that compels a woman to continue an undesired
pregnancy is evil as evil as a law that would compel her to have an abortion."
If there i^ any single thought that I would like to leave with you it is: that
pregnancy is a deeply Significant event in a woman's life. The decision to ter-
minate a pregnancy Is equally significant. The WOMAN must he trusted to make
that decision and have the freedom to act upon it without interference by the
state.
Committee fob Legal Arortion in Missouri
"I would have heen married to someone T didn't love and who didn't love me
And there would have been a child that neither of us wanted. It's like I was
given >!.'ince at life."
185
Abortion is generally therapeutic in most cases if a woman truly desires the
procedure. This is one finding of a recent St. Louis study 1 Interviewing a ran-
dom sample of 1000 women who contacted a problem pregnancy counseling
service; follow-up interviews one-two years after abortion were done on two-
thirds of the group.
WHO OBTAINS AN ABORTION?
Average age : 22 yrs. (Age 13-44).
White : 87%.
Protestant : 51%.
Employed : 47%.
Catholic : 30%.
Single : 59%.
Attending School : 33%.
WHY DID THESE WOMEN FACE AN UNWANTED PEBGNANCY?
No birth control method used : 52%.
Unreliable method of birth control (rhythm or withdrawal) : 8%.
Majority denied any conscious wish to become pregnant.
Majority said they did not believe pregnancy would occur even though they
were sexually active.
Reasons for not using contraceptives ; Needs to deny there had been a con-
scious decision to have intercourse ; Feelings of guilt about sexual activity.
Contraceptive failures : Mostly related to lack of knowledge regarding use of
method, or misinformation regarding reliability of birth control measures.
AFTER-EFFECTS OF ABORTION
Immediate. — With few exceptions, the women were functioning well. Al-
though frequently mentioning desperate feelings while pregnant, the crisis
ended for them with the abortion. Many reported feeling relief and satisfaction.
Few experienced depression, remorse or guilt, and for them reactions were
usually mild and self-limited.
Delayed. — 1-2 years after abortion.
Doing well with no psychological after-effects : 90%.
Moderate to severe emotional discomfort : 4%.
Satisfaction with their decision and not regret: 94%.
Regret over decision: These few women felt they had been influenced by
others regarding abortion.
Many viewed the experience as a growth producing or maturing process.
Many reported that abortion allowed them to stay in school, continue enjoy-
able jobs, or devote more time to families.
None of the married women reported change in marital status or change in
relationships with their husbands.
Statement on Liberalizing of the Abortion Statute, by the Right Reverend
George Leslie Cadigan, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri
Proposed legalization of abortion in the state of Missouri has precipitated
violent debate which has focused disproportionately on the acceptability or un-
acceptability of this means of solving an undesired pregnancy. Regard for the
sanctitv of life has been repeatedly invoked, as if only some of us valued, or
appreciated the true worth of human life. Opponents of liberalized abortion
laws argue from the assumption that the unborn child has an absolute right
to be born— into whatever circumstances— because of its huinanness from the
moment of conception. Therefore, they reason, that a woman who deliberately
interrupts a pregnancy is guilty of great moral evil. It follows, for them, that
the law must prohibit her from choosing this course. She must not be permitted
to reach an independent decision for the direction of her life at this most se-
rious juncture, and the option of abortion must be denied her.
No one knows better than the woman unwillingly pregnant that she faces a
difficult moral decision. But our respect for her ability to make that decision
1 Characteristics of Women Who Obtain Abortions, Elizabeth Smith, MSW, Dept. of
Psychiatry, Washington Univ. School of Medicine, St. Louis, Mo.
186
In ;i responsible way requires that we, by our laws and by our attitudes, grant
• Hal freedom.
When a human life may be said to begin is a profound ethical question, as is
the question of when protection of a greater good justifies the interruption of
., natural Phe answers cannot be final or universal. They must be
Bought every time the questions come, and, in every case, by the individual
it Intimately concerned. It is at once the glory and the burden of
each of us that we arc called upon to make such difficult personal decisions ac-
cording to our own es. When we deny that liberty to any one of our
e away a part of our own birthright. When, more specifically,
woman for making an independent judgment according to her
relating to her reproductive life, we denigrate her personhood.
"wrongness" of abortion as the solution of a problem preg-
nanes- is nnt the critical issue here. The issue is the larger ethical one: can
a ,,v oi and in the role of judge for the personal decisions of others?
What robes shall we wear? Greater than the debatable immorality of terminat-
1 pregnancy is the immorality of refusing a woman access to
; help when she has determined that she needs it. A law that compels, a
ontinue an undesired pregnancy is evil — as evil as a law that would
compel her to have an abortion. The present restrictive statute in Missouri con-
demns the woman who chooses abortion to be furtive, to seek dangerous ways
..ut of her desperate situation. It can make of her a criminal or the victim of
barbarous exploitation.
A society which cannot in common humanity extend a way to such a woman
r conscience dictates fails her at a time when she most needs sup-
portive concern.
If we truly believe in the capacity of each individual to determine the course
of the future— painful and agonizing as the process may be; if we honor the
concepl of individual accountability for every member of the human family —
then, as a society, we can no Longer assign to the state the power to make, for
a member of that society, a conscientious and most personal decision.
owing Dumber of organizations and agencies in Missouri have expressed
their support of the Supreme Court decision establishing a woman's right to
abortion.
These include:
American Association of University Women. Missouri Division.
erican civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri.
Episcopal Church Women United.
Missouri Council of Churches.
National Association of Social Workers, St. Louis Chapter.
National Council of Jewish Women, St. Louis Section.
National Organization of Women.
Planned Parenthood Association of St. Louis.
Planned Parenthood of Warrensburg.
Reproduction Health Services, Inc.
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Women's Political Caucus- .Missouri.
Young Women's Christian Association.
Other organizations which have taken a public stand in favor of liberal
abortion laws are ;
Bealtb and Welfare Council of Metropolitan St. Louis.
State Medical Association.
White House Conference on Children and Youth, Missouri Committee Report,
1970.
I »i. Shoup. Mi. ( !hairman, thank you very much for the opportun-
1 testify as a representative of the National Abortion Rights
Action League, an organization opposed to the constitutional amend-
ment.- now under consideration by this subcommittee. I am acting
head of the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University
Calumet Campus. Hammond, End., where 1 am associate professor,
i my Ph. I), in Zoology at the University of Chicago.
'i- Would you permit me one male chauvanistic re-
mark |
187
Dr. Shotjp. Yes.
Senator Bayh. I don't recall any Purdue faculty meeting your
description when I was going there.
Dr. Shoup. Times have changed.
In a year and a half since the Supreme Court decisions reaffirming
the right of women to choose pregnancy termination, a highly publi-
cized, well-financed campaign has been launched by so-called right-
to-life groups across the country, their purpose being to enact legis-
lation to limit access to and ultimately ban abortion altogether in the
United States. Interestingly, these efforts come at a time when abor-
tions are increasing worldwide.
In recent months, citizens across the country concerned about the
far-reaching implications of such restrictive legislation have recog-
nized the need to organize and present an opposing viewpoint. Some
of these groups have united their efforts by forming as affiliates of
XARAL, and one such group is the Indiana Freedom of Choice Coal-
ition, which has chapters in each of the congressional districts in the
State of Indiana. Our purpose is to educate and inform the public
about the importance issues involved and to urge our elected repre-
sentatives in Congress to support the Supreme Court decision of
January 22, 1973.
There are a number of important reasons why abortion must be
available as an option to women with problem pregnancies. Some
lawmakers, while opposed to complete liberalization of abortion laws,
concede that abortion should be available when necessary to preserve
the life of the woman or in cases of rape or incest.
I believe that is the position taken by your opponent in Indiana.
Senator Bayh. I am not too sure what his position is. I am not
too sure that is of concern for us here. Perhaps that is pertinent to
you back in Indiana, but not for us here.
Dr. Shotjp. I would like to discuss three other reasons in some
detail, with reference to a few statistics for the State of Indiana,
especially the Calumet Region and the metropolitan Chicago area in
which I reside. I will then discuss the question of when life begins
from a biological perspective.
(1) CONTRACEPTIVE FAILURE
As we all know, perfect contraception — 100 percent safe and 100
percent effective — is not yet available. The oral contraceptive the most
efficient method, has a small, but significant failure rate and more-
over, thousands of women cannot for medical reasons use it safely.
Other devices are less successful in preventing unwanted pregnancies.
Added to this are the thousands of pregnancies which result from
ignorance of biological facts and/or legal or procedural restrictions
to access to contraceptive devices. A 1970 national fertility study
found that 26 percent of couples who use contraception fail to delay
a pregnancy which they do not intend to have at all. More than one-
third of couples who use birth control because they want no more
children have a pregnancy within 5 years.
Similar results are found in an Indiana survey : among 35 women
interviewed bv Planned Parenthood of Xorthwest Indiana during
a 3 month period if 1973, 47 percent had become pregnant because
188
their methods of contraception has failed or because protection had
been discontinued on the advice of a physician.
In sum. unwanted and unplanned pregnancies do occur with
starting frequency and for a variety of reasons. We must ask, "Is it
morally defensible to force a woman to bear a child against her will?"
ould like to insert a personal note. My husband and I are the
parents <>f two very much loved and wanted children. I became preg-
nant I 1 .. vears ago with a third as a result of a contraceptive failure.
We chose an illegal abortion. This was prior to the availability of
legal abortions in this country. Our reasons were primarily a matter
of social conscience. We already had two children, as many as we felt
ue could justifiably to the population. We were concerned with the
bell-being of society. We felt that any additional children we desired
we ought to adopt.
i 2 i BIRTH DEFECTS
The second item is birth defects. Some 250,000 children with serious
birth defect- ace born in the United States each year. Serious fetal
anomalies occur in 15-40 percent of cases in which the pregnant
woman contracted rubella during the first trimester, which means to
that individual that her chances of giving birth to a normal, healthy
baby are significantly diminished. A number of genetic and develop-
mental defects such as Mongolism, Tay-sachs disease, Hurler's syn-
drome, and may other crippling or fatal diseases — can now be de-
tected in utero by the procedure known as amniocentesis, in which a
sample of amniotic fluid is extracted from the uterus of the pregnant
woman, usually at about the 16th to 18th week, i.e. during the second
trimester. With such medical procedures available it is now possible
to give a woman a choice whether or not to give birth to a child for
whom life may he an unmitigated misery and for whose family severe
psychological and economic hardships are inevitable. Which of us
ild presume to preclude options for a woman who finds herself
in this tragic situation? The proposed Constitutional amendments
would deny that woman the right to terminate her pregnancy if she
I' sired.
MATERNAL HEALTH
In previous testimony, you have heard of the public health benefits
of legal abortion in the States of Xew York and California. I would
like to share with you information from other parts of the country.
Prior to L973, < !ook ( !ounty Hospital in Chicago admitted an average
of mote than 330 women per month for complications resulting from
illegal abortions. Since abortion has been declared legal, an average
"I' •'■ women per month are treated for consequences of abortion.
In the tiist year of the liberalized Xew York abortion law — Julv
. L970 through dune 30, 1971 -2,800 Indiana women traveled to New
rk to terminate unwanted pregnancies. An estimated 2,500 legal
ere carried out in Indiana in 1973. Tn the first 5 months
°f 1 " ; legal abortions have been reported. In a 6-month
I - ike ( ounty Indiana women who sought counseling
problem pregnancies, 71 percent chose abortion; among 54 women
studied in Porter County. 89 percent opted to terminate their preg-
nan<
189
Statistics show that two-thirds of three-fourths of all legal abor-
tions are replacements of illegal ones.
The study of Tietze has been reaffirmed by June Sklar and Beth
Berkob in a report which came out this week in the September issue
of Science.
Clearly, women will terminate pregnancies whether abortion is
legal or not ; the question is, will all women, regardless of social and
economic status, have access when needed to medically safe abortions^
A human being can scarcely be more desperate than a woman preg-
nant against her will. To deny her the right to reproductive self-
determination is to violate her fundamental right to privacy.
In the context of an over-populated world facing rising costs for
food, goods, and services, and the grim reality of shortages even in
our own country, who can seriously propose that more unplanned
children are needed, especially children for whom adequate provision
cannot be made ? It is quite clear that we don't satisfactorily care for
many of the children Ave already have. Limitation of family size is
often an economic necessity. In more than a few cases, women choose
abortion in order to provide better opportunities for the practical
necessities of life for living children.
Most people support the right to free choice of abortion because
they love children and are concerned for the welfare of potential
children and those already born. This concern is a highly moral and
practical one. Often, if a woman is forced to have a child before she
is ready to care for it, she may never know the joy of having a wanted
child.
For these reasons and others, safe, legal abortion must be available
as a subsidiary method of birth control. Rather than "How can we
justify abortion?" We must ask the question, "How can we justify
compulsory pregnancy?" Because of contraceptive failure, serious
fetal defects, and for maternal health, abortion must remain a legal
alternative. We must remember that amendments to the Constitution
which establish personhood for the fertilized egg deny a woman's
right to control her reproductive life. Potentially, it can mean com-
pulsory pregnancy for any woman.
The controversy surrounding abortion often centers on widely
divergent response to the question, "When does life begin?" At what
point in a 9-month pregnancy can we call the fetus a human being, or
person : at the moment of conception ? at implantation? at the moment
of birth? With present medical techniques it is impossible even to
detect conception and implantation; only some days after the con-
ceptus has embedded itself in the uterine wall can a pregnancy be
confirmed. From a biological point of view it is impossible to state
categorically that life begins at any one particular moment. The
unfertilized egg is just as much "alive" as the fertilized one, in that
it possesses the properties we recognize as characteristic of life. Yet
biologically, embryos and fetuses are distinguished from the more
completely formed stages. As human ecologist Dr. Garrett Hardin
has pointed out, "An acorn is not an oak tree, an egg is not a hen,
a human fetus is not a human being or person. Smashing acorns is not
deforestation, scrambling eggs is not gallicide."
Most biologists think of life as a continuum, a series of stages or
events from conception to death. Individual cells are born and die
190
throughout this continuum from the earliest prenatal stages to death
of the organism. To impose arbitrary distinctions as to which moment
marks the beginning o! life is intellectually dishonest, not justifiable
on the basis of our current knowledge. What remains of this debate
are honest differences of opinion among people of good will as to
the commencement of life, the acquisition of soul or personhood by
the fetus at some particular stage of development or by the newborn
baby. This is a judgment or definition made by individuals based on
religious, moral, and/or philosophical grounds— a perfectly valid ex-
pression of opinion, but not a scientific fact.
The proponents of constitutional amendments prohibiting abortion
by bestowing personhood on the fertilized egg from the moment of
conception would deny the rights of those whose opinion or definition,
als.. based upon moral, religious, and/or philosophical convictions
differs from their own. Because no definitive scientific statement on
this complex issue is possible, it seems to me inappropriate for the
government to pass legislation reflecting one narrow religious and/or
ethical position. Fr. Robert Drinan — D. Mass.— himself morally and
philosophically opposed to abortion, has reminded us that "* * * the
Constitution is made for people of fundamentally differing views. It
is seldom appropriate for one group within society to seek to insert
their moral benefits, however profoundly held, into a document de-
ried for people of fundamentally differing views."
Freedom of religion and separation of church and state are among
the most significant rights granted by the Constitution. It is import-
ant to note that a very large number of religious bodies in the United
States support the right of the individuals to make decisions con-
cerning abortions in accordance with their consciences and therefore
oppose efforts to deny abortion through constitutional amendment,
for example Division of Social Ministries — American Baptist
Churches; American Ethical Union; B'nai B'rith Women; Catholics
for a Free Choice; General Executive Board — Presbyterian Church
in the U.S. ; Board of Homeland Ministries — United Church of
Christ; National Council of Jewish Women; Union of American
Hebrew Congregations; Board of Church and Society — United Meth-
sl Church; and many others. In fact. 23 Protestant, Jewish, and
other religious groups are members of a national organization called
Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights — RCAR.
In addition to religious groups, various professional associations,
feminist organizations, groups concerned with civil liberties and
human rights, and the majority of the people in this country want
to preserve the option of legal abortion.
nk you very much.
Bath. 1 appreciate the contribution you have made.
: . of course, is whether one group who may feel very
•lv about the rightness or wrongness of abortions should impose
that particular standard on the others avIio may disagree. That is a
big step that I struggled with myself.
three of you, but particularly Mrs. Roudebush, came down
Fuly hard on the right of a woman. T have never been a woman, so
hard for anybody who hasn't, to know how a woman
looks at this problem. T don't suppose there has been any other mem-
191
ber of Congress try to insure women's rights more than I have, but
that still doesnt change what I said earlier about the inability to
perhaps fully appreciate it.
Do you feel that there should be limitations imposed on that right '.
Mrs. Roudebush. I believe that limitations were imposed by the
Supreme Court decision and those are the ones that I can accept. In
the first trimester the woman must have the consultation of the physi-
cian, and in the second trimester the State may regulate for maternal
health. In other words, it might be that a State would require her
after the first trimester to go into the hospital for the procedure. It
is also within the decision that after viability she does have abortion
rights if her life is imperiled. This is what leads me to say that I
consider the decision as a kind of compromise. It is not a wide open
option through the 9 months of pregnancy.
Senator Bath. May I ask you to be more definitive as far as your
own thinking is concerned. Would you be comfortable with a greater
restriction than the Supreme Court placed on abortion^ Suppose the
Missouri Legislature were to prohibit any abortion except where the
mothers life was involved during the third and/or second trimester ;
how would you feel about that ?
Mrs. Roudebush. I am not comfortable with that. I would be per-
fectly comfortable if the Missouri Legislature were to say. in the
first trimester it must be done by a doctor, in the second, after the
first trimester, the procedure must be done on an outpatient basis or
in a hospital or similar facility. I would not be comfortable with an
absolute prohibition of the procedure in the last trimester unless
there were exceptions that if the woman's life were in danger or her
health — good medical judgment decided that — she could have safe
legal abortion, medically safe abortion.
Senator Bath. You would be opposed to an outright prohibition?
Mrs. Roudebush. Even with those exceptions? Well, not with those
exceptions. If those exceptions were there then I would think that
the medical judgment could prevail for the woman who
Senator Bath. The health of the mother.
Mrs. Roudebush. The health and life of the mother, yes.
Senator Bath. What about just the life ?
Mrs. Roudebush. No, not just the life of the mother. I prefer
health because I know that it has been held to mean mental health
as well as phvsical and a judgment could be made that her mental
health would "be impaired in such a way by the continuation of the
pregnancy that abortion should be justified, even if it is very late m
the pregnancy when no woman would choose it unless she were
prettv desperate.
Senator Bath. One of the major concerns that I have here is com-
peting rights, the old cliche about the right that yon have to swing
vour fist until it comes into contact with somebody else's nose And.
Doctor, you talked about eggs and hens. What is an egg that has a
baby chicken ?
Dr. Shoup. It is a fertilized egg, no more, no less.
Senator Bath. It is not quite the same egg that you would scramble
for breakfast.
192
Dr. Shoup. Many eggs we scramble for breakfast are fertilized
: there happens to be a rooster in the barn yard they are fer-
tilized eggs.
Senator Hath. When we eat them we can't tell that. In a certain
point in the gestation period you can't.
The situation of the doctor in Boston, I guess it is, whatever hap-
• hat ! Is that case in the court?
Ms, U »wrt. Are you speaking about the Boston City Hospital case?
Senator Ron. Yes.
Ms. Lowrt. There are two different cases going on. One was the
an tiers, and one was a physician who, in 1972, prior to the U.S.
preme Court ruling, with the authorization of the hospital, per-
formed a hysterotomy, which is a minicesarean section on a patient
with medical disability who had been approved under the hospital's
therapeutic abortion system. The case attracted no attention whatso-
i until certain groups, who were strongly opposed to abortions
and who wished to create some publicity surrounding a research proj-
eet going on at the same time subpoena all the city hospital's rec-
ords and in the process of going through those records found this one
particular patient's record.
nator Bath. Is that Doctor Kenneth Edelin?
Ms. Lowkt. Right.
That file was pulled and singled out for special attention. In the
initial months surrounding the case in the press there was a great
deal of confusion as to what the nature of the case was. The attorneys
filed for a bill of particulars which was granted several months later.
The district attorney said in various press releases that Dr. Edelin
was going to be charged with smothering a baby boy. The court has
now granted a bill of particulars and admitted that the baby was
delivered dead, that the cause of death was anoxia, which means oxy-
gen supply being unavailable because of the placenta being detached.
( riven the fact the State did recognize this was a dead birth, the case
will certainly be dismissed.
But I think this kind of case sort of brings to a boil all of the
negative feelings — it is an ugly situation for everybody. I have been
fighting for abortion rights ever since I became aware of the problem,
but I personally feel very uncomfortable with the very clear reality
of the second trimester abortions, and I can understand the reserva-
tions and the very grave concern that people feel in this kind of a
ting. I think it must be particularly difficult for legislators who
not people who are involved day to day, with medicine and hos-
pitals and the realities of that, to try to puzzle this out. Ones' reac-
to seeing a second trimester fetus is usually to recoil. It is a
difficult thing, and I think that most of the focus, for this reason
of the antiabortion groups is to stress what a second trimester
lrtl like, with all of the gory pictures. You have probablv
gotten tons of them.
Bath. Without all the strategy business, it seems to me
en have rights, it would seem to me that it is not unreason-
able to suggest that unborn fetuses also have rights.
X)WRT. It is not unreasonable and I can respect people who
feel that. My problem is this: it is such a unique situation that it is
: to find a parallel that takes it out of an emotional
193
Senator Bath. It is relatively easy for me to sort out in my mind
the one extreme. The question is how you go. You may disagree with
that. Suppose this had been a live 24- week birth, and the mother
wanted to have an abortion; she didn't want the child the baby was
removed, and it was alive.
Ms. Lowry. My feeling is that if that had been a live birth that
there would have been an obligation, and is in fact under the law
an obligation, because an infant that is born is considered legally a
person — there is a clear obligation in my mind for medical personnel
to respond in the same way they would any other person.
Senator Bath. Does that same obligation apply to a baby, to a
fetus that is at the same age of development in the use of the saline
position ?
Ms. Lowry. Well, I will tell you why I don't think so, but this is
a very hard one.
The dilemma is the unique relationship between the fetus and the
woman. We have a traditional leaning in this country toward the
underdog and toward any innocent party — and clearly the fetus is an
innocent party. There is just no question about that. We also have a
lot of respect for individuals and their rights to be free of coercion
and pressures. The dilemma is this : Can we, much as we are con-
cerned about the fetus, set a precedent that says that one individual
may be forced, contrary to their will, for the best of reasons, maybe,
but still forced, to utilize their body, their blood, their oxygen, their
nutrition their calcium, to support the life system of another being,
person, whatever you want to say ?
Senator Bayh. This is not quite that simple. I mean, I understand
that strong feeling, but that runs into an equally strong legal prece-
dent that all of us as human beings, who are in command of our
mental capacities, have to be responsible for our own actions.
Ms. Lowry. We are responsible for our own actions, but, for ex-
ample, there are people who are using kidney machines and without
these machines they will die. It is possible and certainly has been
tried in primates to hook up to the urinary system of a healthy per-
son or primate and by recycling through the healthy individual you
can clean out the system of the ill person and keep them alive. I iden-
tify with the patient in a situation like that. I think the person has
a right to the health care and the machine, but I could not support
legislation which compelled, against his will, another individual to
lie down on that table and to act as the human kidney dialysis ma-
chine. I am not sure I can explain it, but I feel that that sets such a
dangerous precedent, no matter how much emotion one might feel for
the patient, no matter how much one might recognize the dilemma,
and I can see the room dividing with 50 percent going here and 50
percent going there.
Senator Bayh. May I suggest that I don't believe there is a direct
parallel because the person you would force to sit down with the di-
alysis machine had nothing to do with the creation of the kidney
machine; whereas the mother who becomes pregnant participated in
the action which resulted in her pregnancy.
Ms. Lowry. That is fair, because in challenging it he helps to sort
out one's feelings. I think a lot of people agree with you that the
circumstances are slightly different. But I have trouble equating sex-
194
u;l l activity with the final result of pregnancy. The person who is
willingly sexually active is not willing an abortion candidate no more
than the person who is willingly a smoker is willingly a cancer vic-
tim. 1 have a Massachusetts drivers license and I take my life in my
hands whenever 1 go out driving. But that doesn't mean, if an acci-
dent happens, that -well, as you say, it isn't simple. I think it would
too facile to say someone who willingly participates in sexual inter-
course willing accepted the pregnancy.
Senator Bayh. You are going to get yourself in some very hot
water because if that is true' of the mother, then it is not also true of
■I her. Where do von impose a responsibility of the father to care
for the children? I don't really think you want to get yourself in a
position where yon suggest two adults who participate in a sexual
activity don't hear responsibility for that very human, wholesome
activity.
Ms. Lowry. I think one can make out a case for responsibility. It
is interesting in terms of the law where the lines of responsibility
have been drawn, and they have been based on birth. A father in a
case where the couple is not married has not ever been held liable for
the <ost of abortion, for example. I think it is undefined and gray,
and because it is not simple we will continue to debate this and think
about it and shift hack and forth, but in a way it would seem to me
totally inappropriate for the Congress of this Nation to pass legisla-
tion which attempts to say that it is simple.
Senator Bath. I would like to hear the views of any of you who
• are to comment on one of the concerns that has been expressed by
folks on the other side. In all too many instances abortion has been
ted as sort of the in-thing. There has been a great pressure
and movement toward abortion without fully exploring and explain-
ing alternatives. That has been of particular concern to parents of
unwed daughters. Should we give more attention to this? What has
hern the practical experience?
Ms. Lowry. I would say in one sense they are right. I wouldn't
I think in any time of movement or change the pendulum
swings and there are good people and bad people on all fronts. There
are "crazies" on both sides. I think there are some people w T ho have
been so wrapped up in making a political point, again on both sides,
that they have acted in a way which is not in the best interest of other
individuals who come across their path. I think that is the tragic
thing of this being a political football. As soon as we get it out of
the political arena I think that will happen less and less. Some groups
have been very responsible and good. I think that there are. some
groups that don't have such a good record: without naming names,
people who have :i vested political interest in pushing one way or the
other, or people who have a vested financial interest in pushing one
way oi- the other. Traditionally there were social workers who would
tell you there was nothing worse than al>ortions, not because of a
moral belief, hut because the adoption home where, they worked
needed revenue; and at the same time there were front groups for
•""line, vial abortion referrals. Hut I don't think that enacting legis-
lation of a rigid iiiul particular viewpoint is going to address that.
rder to !„• here this morning T had to forego an executive com-
mittee meet in- of the Massachusetts Planned Parenthood League.
195
Right now they are working on a statewide watts or 800 line, so they
can refer callers to every kind of social help, contraceptive care, psy-
chiatric counseling, adoption services, abortions services; and if all
of this political business was not going on we could be back home
working on setting up good systems, positive systems, that I think
would go a long way toward eliminating the kind of abuse that the
right-to-lifers are very wisely concerned about.
Mrs. Roudebush. Could I add something to that?
We are very attentive in our State to the counseling association
with abortion procedures in the clinics that are existing in the State.
I believe that options are discussed with any potential abortion pa-
tient. I know particularly about one clinic which gives the patient
the opportunity to explore all means of solving her pregnancy. I
would say that it is more likely that the other side is offering only
one way to go and I do believe that counseling should be an integral
part of a good abortion service.
Senator Bath. Well, I appreciate very much your taking your time
to help on our study, and I appreciate your contributions.
Thank you very much.
Our next witness will be Dr. Jane Furlong Cahill. member of
Catholics for a Free Choice, Georgia, to be introduced by Father
Joseph O'Rourke of New York.
STATEMENT OF DR. JANE FURLONG CAHILL, MEMBER OF
CATHOLICS FOR A FREE CHOICE, GEORGIA, ACCOMPANIED BY
FATHER JOSEPH O'ROURKE, NEW YORK CITY
Father O'Rourke. I am the Catholic coordinator of the Interfaith
Center for Corporate Responsibility of the National Council of
Churches, the national director of Catholics for a Free Choice. I am a
priest, a Roman Catholic priest recently dismissed from the society
of Jesuits for baptizing the child of a mother in Marlboro, Mass.,
who stood publically for the Supreme Court decision in favor of le-
galizing of abortions for reproductive freedom generally.
~ Senator Bath. Was that the child or the mother?
Father O'Rourke. The mother. The child was 3 months old.
Senator Bath. How old?
Father O'Rourke. Three months.
The refusal of Boston priests to baptize this child exhibited the
lengths that a minoritv faction in the Catholic church are ready to
go to defy individual rights and church community and to preserve
the present narrow-minded power against the common good in the
United States. This denial of religious liberty in the church. I sup-
pose, is to be deplored generally.
But it does place the hierarchy's good citizenship in question. 1 be-
lieve, insofar as mv right to minister the Catholic sacraments for
those who hold the reproductive freedom is threatened and this
mother's right to speak for reproductive freedom is also crushed and
discloses the commitment of the Cardinals to coerce conscience against
the laws of the land in good sense. And for me m my obit raises the
question of the whole social strategy of the hierarehial of the church.
The question of whether thev may be backing off from a commit-
ment of individual liberties of free information to equal medical and
196
sonal services to all, landing the all-Catholic identity on this anti-
abortion stand. If the church is sincerely against abortion, it seems to
me that it should, for example, reorient all its relief services to re-
spond to spontaneous abortion in the world by working on malnutri-
tion and poverty that is the root cause rather than spending so much
effort lobbving against the rights of American women.
So todav I stand against the Vatican, two Catholic churches, the
position of the Jesuits. John Courtney Mury, and Cardinal Gushing,
the former archbishop of Boston, and the present Supreme Court
decision that would say that abortion must remain a legal alternative.
I must say I delight in a sense of freedom in the Catholic com-
munity and the majority of people in the Catholic poor and in the
Catholic theological world that stand for leaving abortion a legal
alternative for their own religious liberty and especially for baptism
and everlasting life that speaks truth that frees
Senator Bath. Did I understand you to say that your position is
a majority position in the Catholic Church?
Father O'Roukke. That is my understanding.
Senator Bath. How does one reach that conclusion ?
Father O'Rotjrke. Well, there have been opinions, sir, that were
raised, that Catholics in the pews, about 88 percent of them hold
for abortions under some circumstances — the National Catholic Re-
porter on November 16, 1973. Certainly in the theological schools
which I am familiar with it is the position.
Senator Bath. Is that beyond the life-of-the-mother exception?
Father O'Roirke. Yes, it depends, of course, but I think it stands
that under some circumstances reproductive freedom is held.
Senator Bath. As a Catholic man, did I understand you also in-
clude Catholic priests in that category?
Father O'Rotjrke. Not Catholic laymen.
Senator Bath. A majority of them favoring?
Father O'Rotjrke. I would say theologians. Every American priest
T wouldn't speak for, but it is certainly an opinion held by some
parish priests in the United States; in fact, I would say a lot more
than is generally known precisely because of our own organization.
Many Catholics are afraid to join because of fear of excommunication
or suspensioTi or dismissal, as in my case.
Senator B.vYir. Well, I think it is a relative question, because we
riot here testifying the theological points of any religious group
involved in this issue, and there are many on both sides. But I think
ii goes to the depth of your feeling to' ask a question: What does
dismissal mean relative to you as a theologian or as a human being?
Father O'Rotjrke. Well, I am afraid it means that the sense of
religious liberty growing in the Catholic communitv is also being
I. and there is also a general attempt to crush the cries of
holic conscience enmeshed in serious moral issues.
snator Bath. What T meant. Father, as far as you and your
Maker or the hereafter, what does that mean?
Father O'Rotjrke, Not very much. I am pretty sure my everlasting
not m jeopardy. One might even raise a counterquestion here.
Bath. Perhaps we will go on to the next point here.
1 ather ( >'Rotjrke. I am still a priest, if that's what you are talking
■ it. and 1 do hope for [('administration of the Jesuit Order, par-
197
traditional church process, and I presently appeal to the sacred
ticularly since the method of dismissal was so much even against
congregation of Rome and have the support of my community in
that effort.
I would like to introduce Dr. Jane Furlong Cahill, member of
Catholic for a Free Choice, she has labored in ecumenical groups and
with many Catholics and other religiously concerned persons about
the serious moral issues of our time. She presently lectures in the
Center for Continuing Education at the University of Georgia.
Jane Furlong Cahill.
Dr. Cahill. I am here as the official representative and also a
national director of Catholics for a Free Choice.
I want to thank you and Senator Talmadge who were instrumental
in allowing me to testify, first of all. I find it is easier to get into
the U.S. Senate than into some chancery offices in the United States
where the bishops of the Catholic church preside.
I must apologize for not giving you copies of my testimony before-
hand. The reason is that I have been very busy directing a conference
on women and religion just completed last Sunday. It was the first
southern conference, funded by the National Endowment for the
Humanities, on the myths and realities of religious leadership. And
due to the illness of my parents and my daughter I could not get
the testimony to you beforehand, but I will see that you get copies
of it,
I am an official representative and a national director of Catholics
for a Free Choice who believe that it is an individual woman's right
to make decisions regarding abortion and contraception in accordance
with her conscience without fear of prosecution. We oppose any efforts
to deny this right of conscience through constitutional amendment
and/or Federal or State legislation. Any interference by the State
we believe is a gross and unscionable invasion of personal privacy
and a direct violation of the female person's human and civil rights
to responsibly control her own reproductive power.
To begin, I would like to say we are also a prolife group as I
believe everyone who has spoken here today is. Catholice for the right
to life or other right to life groups are not alone in this. But abortion
is not a black and white issue. There are many gray areas recognized
in Catholicism as well as other religious communities.
I wanted to give you some background of the Catholic church's
opposition to this, so if you will bear with me for a few minutes we
will establish the background so we may see the church's opposition
to abortion, sterilization, and contraception in its proper historical
text.
"In the tradition of modern Western civilization no two spheres
stand more sharply opposed than that of religion and that of sex,"
Robert Briffault wrote in an article on "Sex In Religion." "Yet."
he goes on, "a glance at the various religions of the world outside of
Christianity, and one or two closely allied systems, a survey of re-
ligious rites of lower phases of culture, shows that the antithesis
does not exist. Those religions and those rites, are on the contrary,
shot through and through with riotous sensuality: the manifestations
of the sex instinct instead of being accounted incompatible with
198
the religious spirit, arc associated with it in the closest manner; and
religion in those phases, is almost as much concerned with sex as with
ethics and theology." -"Sex and Civilization".
did the fear of sex and, therefore, the fear of woman, and
ibsequenl and almost universal exclusion from man's work,
i nd his religious rites come about in Christianity and especi-
ally in Roman Catholicism? We know from the evidence of compara-
tive religion that all religions began in order to serve the human need
for reassurance in a hostile world in which injury, disease, and the
arch enemy death were ever presenting a threat to human life.
All primitive religions had two practical functions, neither of
them the philosophical interpretations of existence, or of life, as
lav think of them. The primary function was to fill the need
of the individual and of the tribe for food, and to insure their con-
tinuance by fertility in the women, the crops, and the animals. Imi-
tative magico-religious rites, including the sexual act itself were thus
performed to that purpose — the gods being presumed to be sexual
beings also.
In this connection, woman, due to her menstrual cycle, was almost
universally linked with the periodicity of the Moon. The "Moon God"
was believed to be husband of every woman, the one who first of
all impregnated her. In view of woman's astonishing power to bleed
a month and live, not die; to give life — (and sometimes bring
forth death in the case of a stillborn child) — to nourish that new
ith food from her own breasts; woman Avas believed to be
of tnana, a god-like power for good or evil, which therefore
red her taboo or forbidden. "Woman, like all things possessed
of mana was simultaneously holy in so far as she was a power for
good, and unclean or taboo in so far as she was regarded as a power,
bly harmful to others.
She was most dangerous especially in those times when she was
womanlike, id est. during menstruation, pregnancy, and lacta-
:ill of which taboos are mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures
or Old Testament— of. Rabbi Jacob Singer, Taboos in the Hebrew
Scripture.
.m almost all religions, including Judaism and Christianity,
some mythical account of the origins of human life in what
i Eliade- "Birth and Rebirth"— Thiers to as the "dream times"
or the longforgotten past — or as Genesis puts it "In the beginning
Through the ritual reenactment of these myths of the origin
of life early religions attempted to relive communally by imitative
religious rites, that thus initiate them into a life that is as Eliade
out. beyond the natural and so. what, was thought to be super-
natural. The account of the creation of human beings in Genesis
'< HI- is Mich :l mythical account of the origin of the first humans
of the fust or original sin.
In the natural order, of course, the real human mother begets
dd by natural birth from the womb. In the super natural order,
'•'he rebirth and the only significant birth according to these
complished by initiation rites, such as baptisms or
riginal sin. such as are found in both Judaism
hnstianity. Such initiations attempt to beget the adolescent
199
child — (most often the male child as in Judiasm, although in Christi-
anity, the female child as well) — or give birth anew by a kind of
role reversal from death to the old natural life with its mother love,
to a new and supernatural life with the gods or God. This new birth
or birth, of course, is usually accomplished by a male mother called
a priest or shaman, who thus by a reversal of roles attempts to be-
come a "mother"' and give "birth" again to the child.
The second function of primitive religion according to Briffault,
was to avoid the anger of the gods or God, by ascetic practices of
self-denial and funerary rites — (or rites of the dead) — whose spirits
were sometimes, like woman, viewed as dangerous to humans. With
the rise of patriarchy, or the rule of the father — which in almost all
primitive religions, follows the demise of matriarchy) — the original
and universally recognized right of the mother over her offspring was
played down to the advantage of the father. A tighter rein was
drawn on woman in civil law, and the fertility goddesses in religious
law, reducing them to second-class status in the state and religion,
though as an Assyriologist at the University of Pennsylvania pointed
out recently Goddesses die hard.
In the creation account in Genesis, Eve, called "the mother of all
the living" was depicted by the male author as being, incredibly, the
offspring of Adam — human physiology notwithstanding — through
the midwifery of God. As a result of the primordial transgression
following upon the creation of man and woman — despite the fact
that Genesis specifically blames and punished both — the Judeo-Chris-
tian traditions passed on the original sin of sexism — as Dr. Rosemary
Reuther and Dr. Mary Daly have both put it— or the philosophy of
the natural or divinely ordained supremacy of the male over the
female.
Woman became by divine right the property of man. She existed
solely for man's sexual pleasure, for procreation of man's child — as
Genesis 3 :16 itself takes note when it says, of the dangers of mother-
hood undestrainedly multiplied, "I will* greatly multiply thy sorrow
and thy conception, in soitoav shalt thou give birth to children; all
they longing shall be for thy husband, even though he shall lord it
over thee." Fear of and not a little primitive or sophisticated, jealous
of Avoman's maternal role led man to keep this property of his in the
ghetto called the home in her case, so as to keep her dangerous powers
as mother away from his work, and prevent her physical weakness be-
lieved due to menstruation, from contaminating it.
Thus the double standard of morality arose; a double standard im-
posed on the female which regarded her, not as the image of God
and therefore a person, as Genesis insists, but as primarily the image
of man, a mere reflection of his ego. and as a seducer of man, the
one on whom he chose to project the myth of feminine evil. Whereas
man, as seen by himself and male theologians, was a spiritual and
intelligent creature, woman, being primarly for sex was viewed as a
carnal and emotional creature; whereas he was active and inde-
pendent, she was passive and dependent on him her Lord. Whereas
his value transcended sexual caste and allowed him a full range oi
sexual freedom, her value was entirely based on her used or unused
status in the sexual realm.— Indeed the Catholic Code of Canon Law
200
still uses this approbrious term, "the use of woman" to describe the
. ial acl iii marriage.
With the suppression of the legal rights and liturgical rites of
woman and the female deites in the supernatural order, the second
function of primitive religions, that of appeasing and averting the
anger of the gods or God by asceticism and rites of the dead took
precedence over magico-religious rites, including ritual sexual inter-
course. By avoiding good things of which the gods might be jealous,
such as food, drink, and above all. sexual relations, in short, things
that were, like woman, taboo, our primitive forebears in the Semitic
tradition passed on to Judaism and subsequently to Christianity,
their more sophisticated heirs, a dubious heritage of which they
formed an often inexplicable part.
"Sexism", as Rosemary Radford Reuther put is, "That is, the op-
pression relationship of the man to the woman, is essentially social
projection of the self-alienation which transcends certain initial
biological differences into a power relationship. This relationship in
turn is totalized in social structures" — such as civil and canon laws
JFC — "and cultural modes that eliminate woman's autonomous per-
sonhood, to define her solely in terms of male needs and negations."
[Sexism and Theology of Liberation]
This resulted in the unfortunate and for woman, tragic, tradition
of Christianity and especially Roman Catholicism in the West so
that, as Briffault put it "no two spheres stand more sharply opposed
than that of religion and that of sex." The natural manifestations
sex, and especially of woman-sex, are in the R. Catholic tradition,
the type of sin. the head-fount of that evil and impurity, with which
the religious spirit cannot be brought into touch without defilement
and dissolution.
The theology of marriage as explained by male Christian theolo-
gians was really little more than a tribal view of marriage, in which
the acl of sexual union was viewed as the use of woman, with little
or no recognition of it as an act of love until the last decade of this
tury with the Second Council of the Vatican. This belief in the
myth of feminine evil did not. however, stem from the teaching of
is who Leonard Swidler pointed out a feminist in his
own time, but was a carryover from 'the sexual taboos common to all
primitive religions, including the Semitic, from which Judaism and
( 'hiistianity ultimately derive.
overwhelming fear of sex and therefore of woman as a temp-
. was heightened by the Roman Catholic Church's insistence on
clerical celibacy.
That, coupled with the fact that theologians insisted on doing her
thinking for her in view of her intellectual weakness, is most mani-
II intelligent people in the official or hierarchical church's in-
genl stand against artificial contraception, sterilization, and
Such a stand is designed to leave women at the mercy, not
I her biological makeup, but also at the mercy of a merciless
celibate hierarchy, who claimed the right to damn her eternally if she
I such methods.
hout medical control over the bodily power of reproduction,
p'.T' '' the " H '"' v oi a " irr ational fertility which even the
HlWe '" ( ■ 16 recognized as a curse. The time of rational en-
201
soulment, or the time when the fetus becomes specifically human, has
been and still is a matter of debate in the Catholic tradition as is
evident from the attached list of authorities ranging from the first
century to the present day.
In the very first book of the Bible, the two-facedness of procrea-
tion as both a blessing from God and a curse from the same God is
very aptly described. Genesis 1:28 recounts the blessing of man and
woman by God who told them "to increase and multiply and fill the
earth and rule over it." The same book of Genesis — 3: 16 — later on
after the fall from God's favor indicates quite clearly that the bless-
ing of procreation is now because of its frequency and pain fulness
covered with a curse for the woman to whom God said, "I will
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shall
bring forth children.'" According to scripture itself then, childbear-
ing in itself a great blessing, is also because of the possible great
multiplicity of pregnancies a woman may undergo and because of
the painfullness associated with pregnancy and birth in many cases.
the curse of the woman. However, this text has largely been ignored
by celibate theologians in the Catholic Church, [of. My article "Con-
traception and Eve".]
The text of Exodus 21, 22 had a far more powerful influence on
both Jewish and Christian theologians, however. This passage dealt
with the abortion that is caused accidentally by a man who struck a
woman who was pregnant. In "The Septuaguint"— the Greek trans-
lation of the Hebrew text— the text prescribes the penalty of "life
for life" if the embryo is "formed." "Formed" here was taken to
mean by Christian theologians at any rate, what Aristotle meant by
"formed." For Aristotle a fetus becomes human 40 days after con-
ception if the fetus is male, and 80 davs after conception, if the
fetus is female. ["History of Animals," 7, 3.] A similar view seems
to underlv the old prescription regarding purification. 40 days being
required "for purification if the child was a boy. SO days if the child
was a girl. ["Contraception," John T. Noonan, p. 90.1
This theory of delayed hominization, or ensoulment with a rational
soul, regarding the fetus was held by some of the greatest theologians
in the Catholic Church and is still held by a goodly proportion ot
theologians today.
I myself consider abortion to be a serious moral problem and while
I am not for abortion across the board. I nonetheless believe there
are many serious reasons which could justify taking the life ot the
fetus. Such reasons, like Dr. Daniel Callahan, 1 would consider, ex-
treme poverty, mental illness, grave or crippling physical disease.
rape, incest, the possibilitv of a deformed fetus, grave risk to the
life of the mother. Another reason 1 did not give hut would like t<>
include now is the positive unwillingness of the woman to hear the
child. I can think of nothing more detrimental to a human baby
than to be born to a mother who hated its very existence.
The Supreme Court decision which interprets the law every liber-
ally is in my opinion a wise decision. When the woman feels justified
in conscience in having it, later abortions sometimes are both moral ly
and medicallv justified, and should also be allowed.
I believe though that the law should have a conscience clause which
would exempt medical and paramedical persons who have moral ob-
202
jectiona to abortion from taking part in such operations except when
the life of the woman is endangered.
Whether or not the Ictus is, in fact, a human person from the
moment of conception, or whether it becomes a human person some-
time afterward during the 9-month period of development is the
point ;it issue in the abortion dilmma. Bernard Haring, C.S.S.R., the
tholic moral theologians insists in "The Law of Christ",
p. 205; "And in fact, if we could assume that the Aristotalian opinion
were certain, we could not condemn abortion committed before the
iul,, the spiritual soul as a crime of murder against a fully
human life." Richard A. McCormick, S. J., in an article in America,
dune 19, L965, on abortion says: "The theory of retarded or delayed
animation is unquestionably a tenable ami respectable theory. It is
still preferred by a notable number of philosophers and theologians.
The church has very wisely uever decided the matter definitly; in-
deed, it is perhaps questionable if this is within her competence.
It Minis to me it is certainly not within the church's competence
to pronounce one way or the other on a matter that requires an inter-
pretation of biological fact- on which from ancient times to the
present, good women and men of all faiths have disagreed. This being
the it even if it were not — that a doubt of fact regarding the
human personhood of the fetus exists, the same rules of morality
must be applied here as in all other cases.
The most fundamental rule of morality is, as Jesus explained to
the lawyer, the love of God above all else and the love of our neigh-
bor whom we are commanded to love as we love ourselves. These two
commandments are the essence of the New Law of Christ, as St.
Thomas says, as well as the foundation and first general principles
of the natural law. [Summa Theologies I-II, Q. 100. B.J We are
bound, after God, to love ourselves, and then, our neighbors, not
equally with ourselves, but in a manner patterned on true love of self.
We should love especially those nearest to us in the natural order, our
spouses, children, parents, el cetera. The secondary principles of the
natural law such as the Ten Commandments are simply explications
of these primary rules.
The fifth commandment has always been interpreted to mean not
>lute prohibition of killing a person, but the unjustified taking of
I it her Haring in the same work mentioned earlier explains it
way: "The killing of a man. is not an unconditional evil action
because the bodily life of one's neighbor is not a value which must
be preserved under all circumstances. Only the unjustified attack on
the life of one's neighbor is always evil."
Christian theologians have always permitted the just war, and in
they have hung medals on those who have participated in war,
ough war certainly results in the foreseen killing and horrible
tuning <»t thousands, even hundreds of thousands of innocent
him utside the womb, including infants, children, women,
and me,, ,,! all ages. I might point out the American Catholic hier-
chy never raised a voice -with the exception of perhaps one or two,
"bout the immorality of the war in Vietnam.
lead armies to war. Hierarchies have condoned
hundreds of yvars, as the American hierarchy did the war in Vietnam.
All this wholesale slaughter of the innocent as well as the enemv, is
203
and was justified in Catholic theology on the basis of the principle
of the double effect. Despite the most atrocious method of killing
such as bombs, mapalrn, flame-throwers, antipersonnel weapons, the
American Catholic hierarchy never have raised their voice against
the immorality of such weapons. Thus when a pilot dropped a bomb,
knowing that hundreds of thousands of innocent people will be killed
with the enemy, theologians said he must simply intend the death of
the enemy, not the death of the innocent, even though he knows for
certain that many, many innocent people will die as a direct result of
his actions. The simple fact of the matter is, if the bomber pilot did
not intend but certainly did not rejoice in, both the death of the
innocent and the enemy he would not release the bomb from the
hatch.
In short, the right to life, even of the innocent, while it is the most
basic right is not an unconditional right to be preserved at all costs.
It can only be taken, justly but regrettably, under certain conditions;
but it most certainly can be and has been taken, and the taking has
been sanctioned and even lauded by Catholic theologians and the
hierarchy from the earliest days of Christianity.
Catholic theologians can and do justify the taking of the life, or
lives, of the innocent, on the basis of the principle of the double
effect, in order to preserve some other human rights or values of equal
or greater worth. Such values can be any of the following: for
example, according to Catholic moral theology — and this is to be
found in most theology texts — the preservation of freedom, in self
defense in order to preserve your own life or another persons life;
in defense of your personal liberty; in defense of your bodilv in-
tegritv; for example, a woman as 1 pointed out in a televised debate
used to teach students in religion at Villanova University, with the
editor of the Catholic Standard and Times in Philadelphia— if a
woman was about to be raped and decided she would rather go over
a cliff than be raped— that justified her committing suicide.
So a person could, in order to preserve her/his bodily integrity.
or even her/his own personal property, that is material goods, deemed
necessarv to life such as food, or even a horse— if that horse or food
was essential to him/her or the family's well-being could take the
life of the thief if necessary in order to keep the food and keep the
horse which were so essential to life.
In view of these exceptions to the command, "Thou shall not kill ,
it seems to me for the reasons given in my testimony before the Penn-
sylvania board in Harrisburg, a woman may be justified m seeking
an abortion from a phvsician.
Brieflv, the reasons*! hold this are the following. The purposes of
marriage and the marital act are two fold, the fostering of mutual
love between the spouses and the procreation and education of any
children who may issue from the marriage. Of course procreation
only binds when 'it i^ possible and reasonable. Procreation involves
not only the physical begetting of a child, but also seeing that it is
cared for and educated in truly humane fashion. It entails the bring-
ing of one's children to a state of human perfection. However,
through contraceptive failure— whether of rhythm or other artificial
contraception— at this point Catholic women are most of all on the
204
firing line. We have five great daughters who are the product of
rhythm, and very much loved children, whom sometimes we refer to
"Rhythmaires." Impregnation can occur without its being in-
tended. Should impregnation occur to a woman who is so extremely
poor, that neither she nor her husband, nor their existing children,
ran l)i' supported in truly human fashion, the woman may be obliged
justice to herself, to her husband and to the potential rationality
of the fetus to seek an abortion. Here, albeit innocently, the preg-
nancy constitutes a grave internal threat to the very existence of the
family. That is, the common good of the family requires this tragic
but necessary action.
Mental illness, severe enough to incapacitate the woman for human
motherhood would also be in my judgment serious reason for term-
ination of pregnancy. Every fetus by reason of its potential rational-
ity is in justice entitled to a mother who is rational. Furthermore, the
loss of tlie ability to use the highest powers she has, the reason and
will, is a fearful enough loss in itself and pregnancy in addition to
such a state constitutes a grave and often unbearable threat to the
woman's total well-being.
Crippling physical disease would be sufficient reason for termina-
tion of pregnancy because the disease itself constitutes a grave in-
ternal threat to her health and life, to which the presence of the
fetus add- further aggravation.
In the case of rape and incest, the resulting pregnancy has been
inflicted unjustly and violently against the woman's or child's will by
a violation of her right to physical integrity. She, therefore, has the
right to remove by an abortion the result of this assault, out of love
for herself.
The possibility of severe deformity in the fetus is sufficient reason
to warrant an abortion also. Nature itself tends, as St. Thomas
pointed out. bodily perfection and of itself, not by direct Divine
intervention aborts in almost one-third of all pregnancies where the
fetus is defective. Here we would be imitating the unconscious intel-
nce of the natural processes, consciously. As the late Dr. Joseph
'he discoverer of the measles vaccine, a great pediatrician
from Philadelphia, pointed out, many cases of monogolism with
its severe mental retardation, and Tay-Sachs disease with its men-
tal retardation can already be detected early in pregnancy by
amniocentesis.
To -inn up. we musl say the pregnant woman is first of all a human
being, herself, which was a doubtful condition in Christian theology
-plained by celibate male theologians, with her own set of rights
flowing from her own human nature. She doesn't lose her human
t- by becoming pregnant. She should be regarded as the bearer
(,r another as yel not fully human life, in the early months of preg-
nancy. A- with every other human being, there "are certain rights
of which -he is possessed and which she may defend out of charity
and m justice to herself. Such rights are the" right to life; to health,
whether physical or mental ; to liberty, whether spiritual or phvsical;
to physical integrity; to those goods which are deemed essential to
life. II a woman ha- additional obligations to a husband and exist-
ing children -he may be strictly obliged in justice to seek an abor-
205
tion in order to safeguard not only her life but also the well-being
of her family, no matter how repugnant and heart rending this
decision may be.
I, as an individual and as the representative of the Board of
Directors for Catholics for a Free Choice, a national organization
of Catholics, am dedicated to the principle that women have the
right and duty to follow their conscience in abortion decisions, and
that the law has a corresponding right and duty to mala' it possible
for them to implement their choices under medically safe condition-.
In this respect we are wholeheartedly in favor of the Supreme Court
decision and commend the Justices for their wisdom.
However, I would hasten to add that when abortions are per-
formed, they should be followed by contraceptive counselif
to provent if at all possible, the need for future abortions.
We consider abortion to be a serious moral problem and while
we are not for abortion across the board, we nonetheless believe
there are many serious reasons that could justify taking the life
of the fetus. Such reasons we would consider, extreme poverty, men-
tal illness, grave or crippling physical disease, rape, incest, the pos-
sibility of a deformed fetus, grave risk to the life of the mother.
Another reason would be the positive unwillingness of the woman to
carry the pregnancy to term, for I can think of nothing more detri-
mental to a human baby than to be born to a mother who hated its
very existence.
Catholic women as well as non-Catholic women are driven to abor-
tion, which is often their only recourse, as a last resort when contra-
ception is denied them or fails to work effectively, as in the case of
rhythm, especially.
Our hierarchy and priests and laity have an obligation in charity
and justice to at least talk to these troubled women as sisters. With
very rare and brave exceptions, like Father Joe O'Rourke, they
haven't been doing it. It would also help matters considerably if
Catholics would stop the un-Christian name calling and labeling
everyone who disagrees with them as murderers and abortionists
and listen to the other side for a change. Right and reason have not
always been on the Catholic side, as witness the ongoing contracep-
tion debate in the church. As the National Catholic Reporter stated
on November 16, 1973, 88 percent of all Roman Catholics favor abor-
tion when there is a danger to the mother's life or health. 75 percent
in case of rape, and 77 percent in case of defective fetus.
So you see that our bishops are not the apolitical creatures they
present themselves as being. Anyone in Congress or a State legisla-
ture is always very much aware of the political clout of the Roman
Catholic hierarchy in which they are using money which is primarily
donated by Catholic women to destroy the rights of Catholic women
and other women here and elsewhere.
I thank you very much.
Senator Bayii. Thank you. Dr. Cahill.
T hope you will forgive me if I don't take the time to resume this
discussion' further. T appreciate the fact that you have testified.
We will recess these hearing.- now pending the call of the Chair
for future hearings.
206
[Whereupon al L2:45 p.m. the hearings recessed, subject to call
by the Chair.]
' [Material for the record follows:]
[MORI of Db. Jane Fublong-Cahill, Ph.D., Doctor of Religion, National
H,i:m roB of Catholics fob a Fbee Choice
l MoNY AMi T VI BOD1 I NON OF DB. JANE CAHIIX, BY REV. JOSEPH O'ROURKE
Mn name la Father Joseph O'Rouke, Catholic Coordinator of the Interfaith
a Free Choice I am a priest recently dismissed from the Society of Jesus for
■ Free Choice I am a priest recently dismissed fro mthe Society of Jesus for
baptizing a child of a mother who stood publicly for the Supreme Court de-
cision and for reproductive freedom. t
The refusal of Boston priests to baptize this child, Nathaniel Ryan Mor-
reale shows the lengths a minority faction in the Catholic Church are willing
to deny individual rights and community and church fellowship in order
rve its power against the common good. This denial of religious
liberty Is to be deplored in the church and in our society, and I suppose, places
our bierarchys' good citizenship in question. As my right to minister the
Catholic sacraments for those who hold for reproductive freedom is threat-
1 by my dismissal, so also is disclosed the commitment of American Cardi-
nals to coerce conscience against the laws of the land and good sense. These
further raise the question of the whole social strategy of the Catholic
hierarchy, for they indicate a hacking off from a commitment to individual
liberty, free information and choice, equal medical and social services to all,
placing the whole Catholic identity on a myopic anti-abortion stand; and
this when 88$ of the Catholics in the pew favor the choice of abortion under
some circumstances.
If the Church was to stand sincerely against abortion, it would re-orient
- .rial and relief services to stop the 100 spontaneous abortions for every
200 births in the Third World by attacking the malnutrition, poverty and
medical ignorance that is the cause of this hidden plague, rather than lobbying
against the rights of American women.
nd here again for the religious liberty of the Second Vatican Council,
for the position of reproductive freedom of .1. C. Murray and Cardinal dish-
ing, for the Supreme Court decision. I delight in the majority position in the
Catholic pew and the American Theological Catholic world that says that
abortion must remain a legal alternative. And 1 re-affirm the religious liberty
of Catholic women and the right to baptism and everlasting life in Christ
of those families thai speak the truth that frees.
Senator P.ayh and members of the Subcommittee, I respectfully introduce
I»r .lane Furlong-Cahill.
Mr Chairman and Members of the Committee: As a National Director of
Catholics for a Free Choice, we welcome this opportunity to testify here
today before this committee as to the majority of Cathoilcs support for Free
Choice which is indicated in recent polls such as the NCR Report on data
collected by the National Opinion Research Centers' General Social Survey,
Which we respectfully submit to this committee. (See attached.)
"In the tradition of modern Western civilization no two spheres stand more
sharply opposed than that of religion and that of sex" Robert Briffault wrote
in an article on "Sex iii Religion". "Yet," he goes on, "a glance at the various
religions of the world outside of Christianity, and one or two closely allied
urvey of religious rites of lower phases of culture, shows that
the antithesis floes not exist. Those religions and those rites, are on the con-
trary, --hot through and through with riotous sensuality; the manifestations
of the sex instinct instead of being accounted incompatible with the religious
OCiated with it in the closest manner; and the religions in those
almosl as much concerned with sex as with ethics and theology."
ation Havelock Ellis, Ed. 1929.
did the fear of m.\ and. therefore, the fear of woman, and her sub-
llmost universal exclusion from "man's work", "his" wars and
rites come about in Christianity and especially in Roman
Catholicism? We know from the evidence of comparative religion that all
207
religions began in order to serve the human need for reassurance In a hos-
tile world in which injury, disease and the archenemy death, pre-
senting a threat to human life.
All primitive religions had two practical functions, neither of them the
philosophical interpretations of existence or of life, as we today think of
them. The primary function was to till the need of the individual and of
the tribe for food, and to insure their continuance by fertility in the woman,
the corps and the animals. Imitative magico-religious rites, including tin-
sexual act itself were thus performed to that purpose.
In this connection, woman, due to her menstrual cycle, was almost uni-
versally linked with t lie periodicity of the moon. The moon-god was believed
to be husband to every woman, the one who first of all impregnated her. In
view of woman's astonishing power to bleed once a month and live, ool die;
to give life (and sometimes bring forth death in the case of a stillborn
child); to nourish that new life with food from her own breasts;- woman
was consequently believed to be possessed of mana, a godlike power for |
or evil, which therefore rendered her taboo or forbidden, especially in I
times when she was most womanlike, i.e., during menstruation, pregnancy
and lactation, all of which taboos are mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures,
(cf. Rabbi Jacob Singer, Taboos in the Hebrew Scriptures). Again, almost
all religions (including Judaism and Christianity) have some mythical ac-
count of the origins of human life in what Mircea Eliade, Birth and Rebirth,
refers to as the "dream times" or the long-forgotten past -or. as the Genesis
puts it "In the beginning . . ." Through these myths of the origins of life
they attempt to re-live communally by imitative religious rites, that thus
initiate them into a life that is. as Ediade points out — beyond the natural
and so what was thought to lie super-natural, such as the account of the
creation of human beings in Genesis L-III.
In the natural order, of course, the real human mother begats her child
by natural birth from the womb. In the 'super-natural" order, however, the
"re-birth" (and the only significant birth i is accomplished by initiation rites.
such as baptisms or washings, from sin, such as are found in both .ludiasm
and Christianity. Such initiations attempt to beget the adolescent child (most
often, the male-child, although in Christianity, the female child as well), <>r
"give birth anew" by a kind of "role reversal" from the "death" to the old
natural life with its mother love, to a "new" and "supernatural" life with
the gods or God. This "new birth" or rebirth, of course, is usually accomp-
lished by a male-mother called a priest or shaman.
The second function of primitive religion according to Briffault. v
avoid the anger of the gods or God, by ascetic practices of self-denial and
funerary rites or rites of the dead, whose spirits were sometimes, like woman,
viewed as dangerous to humans. With the rise of patriarchy, or the ride of
the father, (which in almost all primitive religions, follows the demist
matriarchy), the original and universally recognized right of the mother over
her offspring was played down to the advantage of the father. A tighter rein
was drawn on woman and the fertility goddesses in civil and religious law,
reducing them to second-class status in the state and religion, though as
University of Penna. Assyriologist pointed out, "goddesses die hard."
As in the creation account in Genesis. Eve. called "the mother of all the
living" was depicted by the male author as being incredibly, the "offspring"
of Adam, human physiology not withstanding, through the midwifery of
As a result of the "primordial transgression" following upon the creation "f
man and woman, despite the fact that Genesis specifically blames and punishes
both the woman and the man. the Judaeo-Christian tradition passed "ii the
"Original Sin of Sexism" (as Dr. Rosemary Ruether and Dr. Mary Daly have
both put it), or the philosophy of the "natural" or "divinely ordained su-
premacy" of the male over the female.
Woman became by "divine right" the property of man — she existed so solely
for man's sexual pleasure, for procreation of "man's" child—as G<
16 itself takes note when it says, of the dangers of repeated pregnant
"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow Shalt thou
give birth to children ; all thy longing shall be for thy husband, even though
he shall lord it over thee." Fear and jealousy of woman's maternal role led
man to keep this "property" of his in the ghetto called the ho
keep her dangerous powers as mother away from "his" work, and prevent
208
her physical •weakness" believed due to menstruation from contaminating it.
Thus the double standard of morality arose; a double standard imposed on
females uhnh regarded her nut as the image of God and therefore a person
hut as primarily the image of man, a mere reflection of
bis ego the one on whom he chose to project the myth of feminine evil by
seduction Whereas man as seen by male theologians was a spiritual and
Intelligent creature, woman, being primarily for sex, was viewed as a carnal
and emotional creature. Whereas he was active and independent, she was
passive and dependent on him, her Lord. Whereas his value transcended
al caste and allowed him a full range of sexual freedom, her value was
entirely based on her •'used'' or ••unused" status in the sexual realm. (Indeed
the Code of Canon Law still uses this opprobious term, "the use of woman",
to describe the sexual act. i
With the suppression of the legal rights of woman and the rites of the
female deities in the supernatural order, the second function of primitive
religions, that of appearing and averting the anger of the gods or God by
asceticism and rites of the dead, took precedence over the Magico-religious
rites, which included ritual sexual intercourse. By avoiding good things of
which the gods might be jealous, such as food, drink, and above all, sexual
relations, in short, things that were, like woman, taboo, our primitive for-
bearers in the Semitic tradition passed on to Judiasm and subsequently to
Christianity, their more sophisticated heirs, a dubious heritage of which they
formed an often inexplicable part, (cf, Rabbi Singer, Taboos in the Hcbrciv
Scriptures.) "Sexism", as Rosemary Radford Ruether puts it, "that is, the
oppressive relationship of the man to the woman, is essentially social pro-
jection of the self-alienation which transcends certain initial biological dif-
ferences into a power relationship. This relationship in turn is totalized in
1 1 structures (such as civil and canon laws) and cultural modes that
eliminate woman's autonomous personhood, to define her solely in terms of
male needs and negations." Rosemary Radford Reuther, Sexism and Theology
of Liberation, Christian Century Magazine, December 12, 1973.
This resulted in the unfortunate and for woman, tragic, tradition of Chris-
tianity and especially Roman Catholicism in the West that, as Briffault put
it "no two spheres stand more sharply opposed than that of religion and that
of sex." The natural manifestations of sex, and especially of woman-sex, are
in the Roman Catholic tradition, the type of sin of which "the head-fount
of that evil and Impurity, with which the religious spirit cannot be brought
into touch without defilement and dissolution."
The theology of marriage as explained by male Christian theologians was
really little more than a tribal view of marriage, in which the act of sexual
union was viewed as the "use" of woman, with little or no recognition of it as
an act of love until the last decade of this century with the Second Council
of the Vatican. This belief in the myth of feminine evil did not, however, stem
from the teaching of Jesus who was. as Dr. Leonard Swidler pointed out, a
feminist in his own time, but was a carry-over from the sexual taboos com-
mon to all primitive religions including the Semitic from which Judaism and
Christianity ultimately derive, cf Jesus teas a Feminist.
This overwhelming fear of sex and therefore of woman as a temptress, was
heightened by the Church's insistence of clerical celibacy. That, coupled with
the fact that theologians insisted on doing her thinking for her (woman) in
view of her "intellectual weakness", is most manifest to all intelligent people
in the official or hierarchical Church's intransigent stand against artificial
traception, sterilization, and abortion. Such a stand is designed to leave
u " ; " the mercy, not only of her biological makeup, bid also at the mercy
i merciless celibate hierarchy, who claimed the right to damn her eternally
USed such methods.
With, ml medical control over the bodily power of reproduction, woman is
bft at the mercy of an irrational fertility which even the Bible in Genesis 3,
Knized as a curse. The time of rational ensoulment or the time when
becomes specifically human has been and still is a matter of debate
Catholic tradition as is evident from the following list of authorities
ranging from the first century to the present (lay.
gory MY. in his Bull Sedes \)><>*tniic<i in 1591, revoked the puni-
eglslation ol Pope Sixtus V saying, "where no homicide or no animated
209
fetus is involved," the law ought "not to punish more strictly than the
sacred canons or civil legislation does."
The Roman Ritual from 1617 to L625 prescribed baptism be administered
in danger of death only if either the head or some limbs of the fetus a)
and only if this limb gives some sign of life, only after "quickening" (Homini-
zation). Unorganized fetuses are not to be baptized.
St. Alphonsus IAgouri 1696-1787, a Doctor of the Church, Insisted that the
fetus is "certainly not animated before it is formed." Moral Theology •'>. Trad
2.
Sacred Congregation of studies in Rome offered Thomistic theses as guide-
lines to Catholic seminaries and universities. The loth thesis states that the
human soul, which is created by God, "may be infused into a subject thai
sufficiently disposed."
H. M. Hering, O.P. 1951, "I)e Tempore Animationis Foetus Humani" An-
gelicum, 28, 1951, 18-29 says the theory of delayed animation or bominizal
"counts strong defenders, especially among the philosophers who are wont to
investigate the matter more profoundly than the moralists and the canonists."
For the latter part of the 19th century he mentioned as upholders of this
theory, Liberatore, Zigliara, Cornoldi, Lorenselli, Sanseverino and di Maria.
More recent authors mentioned were. Cardinal Mercier. V. Reiner, A. D.
Sertillanges, D. Prummer, A. Farges-d, Barbedette. A. Vermeersch, B. Merkel-
bach, A. Pirotta, C. Carbone, F. X. Macquart, R. Jolivet, A. Lanza, E. Mes
senger, R. Lacroix and M. Barbado."
Others still more contemporary who are today questioning the one-dimen-
sional nature of Catholic theology regarding abortion are: Rev. Bernard
Haring, Hans Kung, Teilhard de Chardin. Giles Milhaven. S.J., Joseph Don-
ceel, S.J., Robert .Springer, Dr. Daniel Callahan. {Abortion: Lair, Choice and
Morality, who testified before the N.Y. State Abortion commission for a re-
form of the law). Cornelius Vander Poel, Charles Curran, Dr. Mary Daly,
Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Dr. Elizabeth Farians and myself.
In the very first book of the Bible, the two-facedness of procreation as both
a blessing from God and a curse from the same God is very aptly described.
Genesis 1,28 recounts the blessing of man and woman by God who told them
"to increase and multiply and fill the earth and rule over it." The same book
of Genesis (3, 16) later on after the "Fall" from Cod's favor indicates quite
clearly that the blessing of procreation is now because of its frequency and
painfulness covered with a curse for the woman to whom God said. "/ will
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shall bring
forth children." According to Scripture itself then, childbearing, in itself a
great blessing, is also because of the possible multiplicity of pregnancies a
woman may undergo and because of the painfullness associated with preg-
nancy and birth in many cases, the curse of the woman. However, this text
has largely been ignored by celibate theologians in the Catholic Church, cf
Contraception and Eve, Dr. Jane Cahill, New Blackfriars Magazine, London,
June 1966.
The text of Exodus 21. 1*1* had a far more powerful influence on both Jewish
and Christian theologians, however. This passage dealt with the abortion that
is caused accidentally by a man who struck a woman who was pregnant. In
The Septuaguint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew tost) the text itself
prescribes the penalty of "life for life" if the embryo is "formed". (■Formed"
here was taken to mean, by Christian theologians at any rate, what Aristotle
meant by "formed". According to Aristotle, a fetus becomes human forty days
after conception if the fetus is male, and eighty days after conception if the
fetus is female. (History of Animals. 7. 'A. ) A similar view seems to underly
the old prescription regarding purification, forty days being required for
purification if the child was a boy. eighty days if the child was a girl. {Contra-
ception. John T. Noonan, 1'. 90). This theory of delayed hoininization. or
ensoulment with a rational soul, regarding the fetus was held by some of the
greatest theologians in the Catholic Church and is still held by a goodly
proportion of theologians today. Among those who held this theory \\ .
St. Jerome, the translator of the Bible (Vulgate), who said in bis Epistles
121, ',. that abortion is not homocide until the elements of the fetus
their appearance and members".
St. Augustine, On Exodus, 21, 80, a commentary, says if the embr
"unformed", the law does not provide that the act (of abortion) pertains to
homocide.
210
m Intelm a medieval theologian, wrote that It is -inadmissible that the
infant snoind receive a rational soul from the moment of conception
" v , \lnam. Bishop of Paris, *v,„r Books of Sentences , 2d- 18, 8., The
son! a created and Infused after the body has already been formed.
i V m >«*. *»»"<"< r„„r,-« Gentiles 2, 89 held that the .rational
soul was created by God only after the embryo passed through a kind of vege
t'lthe and sentient stage In its development.
,,„,„/ the Council of Trent 1566 clearly held delayed rational en-
soulmentThen it said -since in the natural order no body can be informed
1, 1 man soul except after the prescribed space of time." It was here
discussing the extra-ordinary conception of Jesus whose soul was joined to
the body at conception, unlike all others. , K „*,,„.
This is Drecisely the point at issue in the abortion dilemma, i.e., whether
or not the fetus is in fact, a human person from the moment of conception or
whether it becomes a human person sometime afterward during the nine-
month period of development. Bernard Haring, C.S.S.R., the dean of Catholic
mural theologians, insists in The Law of Christ, page 205, In fact, if we
could assume thai the Aristotolian opinion were certain, we could not con-
demn abortion committed before the infusion of the spiritual soul as a crime
Of murder againsl a fully human life." Richard A. McCormick, S.J., in an
article in America. June 19, 1965 on Abortion says. "The theory of retarded
or delaved animation is unquestionably a tenable and respectable theory. It is
still preferred by a notable number of philosophers and theologians. The
Church has very wisely never decided the matter definitively; indeed, it is
perhaps questionable if this is within her competence."
It seems to me it is certainly not within the Church's competence to pro-
nounce one way or the other on a matter that requires an interpretation of
biological facts on which from ancient times to the present, good women and
men of all faiths have disagreed. This being the case (but even if it were not)
that a doubt of fait regarding the human personhood of the fetus exists,
the same rules of morality must be applied here as in all other cases.
The most fundamental rules underlying all morality as Jesus explained are
the love of Cod above all else and the love of our neighbor whom we are
commanded to love as we love ourselves. These two commandments are the
ace of the New Law of Christ, as St. Thomas says, as well as the founda-
tion and first general principles of the natural law. (Summa Theologica I. II,
Q 109). We are bound, after Cod. to love ourselves and love our neighbors,
not equally with ourselves, but in a manner patterned on true love of self.
Mil ,Q. 44, a. 7. We should love ('specially those nearest to us in the natural
order, our spouses, children, parents, etc. The secondary principles of the
natural law such as the Ten Commandments are simply explieitations of these
primary rules.
The Fifth commandment. "Thou shalt not kill" has always been interpreted
by Jewish and Christian moralists to mean, not an absolute prohibition of
killing a person, but the unjustified taking of life. Father Haring in the same
work mentioned earlier (Vol. T, P. 288) explains it this way. "Killing of a
man. is not an unconditional evil action, because the oodihi life of one's
neighbor is nut a value which must he preserved muter nil circumstances. Only
tlie unjustified attack on the life of one's neighbor is always evil." The Law
>>f Christ.
Christian theologians have always permitted the so-called "just war", ev^n
though it certainly results in the foreseen killing and maiming of thousands,
even hundreds of thousands of innocent human lives, including infants, chil-
dren, women and men. Popes have led armies to war. hierachys have con-
•d hundreds of wars, as did the American Catholic hierarchy condone the
war in Vietnam. All this wholesale slaughter of the innocent as well as the
"enemy" is and was justified on the basis of the principle of the double effect.
The most atrocious methods of killing, such as bombs, napalm, flame-throwers,
of both the "enemy" and the innocent, lie would not oven release the bomb
i Bite, knowing full well that hundreds of innocent people will be killed
along with the "enemy" he must intend only the death of the "enemy" not
'he death .if the innocent, even though he knows for certain that many inno-
cent people will die as the direct result of his action. But the simple fact of
'he matter Is, that if he did not intend, but certainly not rejoice in. the death
of both the "enemy" and the innocent, he would not ever release the bomb
211
from its hatch. In short, the right to life, even of the Innocent, while it is the
most basic right is not an unconditional right to be preserved at all
It can only be taken, justly but regrettably, under certain conditions; bnl it
most certainly can be and has been taken and the taking lias been sanctioned
by Catholic theologians and the hierarchy from the earliest days of Chris-
tianity.
Theologians can and do justify the taking of life (or lives) of a fully con-
scious human being (or beings) on the basis of the principle of the double
effect, in order to preserve some other human rights or values. Such values
can be any of the following :
1. The preservation of freedom, whether physical or spiritual, as in a
"just war".
2. The defense of self or another person in order to preserve one's own or
another's life, personal liberty, bodily integrity, or property, i.e., material
goods deemed essential to life, such as food, a horse, etc.
In view of these exceptions to the command "Thou shalt not kill", it seems
to me, a woman may be justified in seeking an abortion from a physician.
Correspondingly, the physician may be justified in performing the abortion,
however distasteful they may both find the task. Briefly, the reasons I hold
this are the following. The purposes of marriage and the marital act are
two-fold, the fostering of mutual love between the spouses and the procreation
and education of any children who may issue from the marriage. The latter
duty of course only binds when procreation is possible and reasonable. Pro-
creation involves not merely the physical begetting of the child, hut also
seeing that it is cared for and educated in truly human fashion. In short, it
entails the bringing of one's children to the human perfection of knowledge
and virtue according to St. Thomas. Many times, however, through contra-
ceptive failure (whether of rhythm or other artificial contraceptives, cf my
article Contraception and Eve, impregnation can occur without its being in-
tended, or in the case of rape by forceful violation of bodily integrity.
Should impregnation occur to a woman who is so extremely poor that neither
she nor her husband, nor their existing children, if any, can be supported in
human fashion, the woman may be obliged in justice to herself, her husband
and her children, and out of justice to the potential rationality of the fetus,
to seek an abortion. Here, albeit "innocently" the pregnancy constitutes a
grave internal threat to the very existence of the family. Thus the common
good of the family requires this tragic but necessary action. Mental illness.
severe enough to incapacitate the woman for human motherhood would also
be, in my judgment, serious reason for termination of pregnancy. Every fetns
by reason of its potential rationality is in justice entitled to a mother who
is herself rational. Furthermore, the loss of one's ability to use the highest
powers one has, the reason and will, is a fearful enough loss in itself and
pregnancy in addition to such a state constitutes a grave and often unbear-
able threat to the woman's total well-being.
Crippling physical disease would be sufficient reason for termination of
pregnancy because the disease itself constitutes a grave enough internal
threat to her health and life, to which the mere presence of the fetns add
another "innocent" but nonetheless serious threat. In the case of rape and
incest, the resulting pregnancy has been inflicted unjustly and violently
against the woman by a violation of her right to physical integrity. There-
fore, she has the right to remove by an abortion the result of this assault out
of true love of self.
The possibility of severe deformity is sufficient reason to warrant an abor-
tion. Nature itself intends, as St. Thomas observed, bodily perfection and of
itself (not by direct Divine intervention) aborts in almost one-third of all
pregnancies where the fetus is defective. Here we would be imitating the
unconscious "intelligence" of the natural processes, consciously. As the late
Dr. Joseph Stokes, the renowned pediatrician pointed out. many cases of
mongolism with its severe mental retardation can already be detected early
in pregnancy by amniocentesis.
In summary, the pregnant woman is first of all a human being, herself, with
her own set of rights which she does not lose simply by becoming pregnant.
Thusly. she may be regarded as the bearer of another as yet no fully human
life, in the early months of pregnancy, (though the very same moral prin-
ciples hold even if the full humanity of the fetus were certain.) As with some
212
rJ -hl to life" to health whether physical or mental, to noeny wneuier
Bnlritual or physical! to physical integrity; to those goods deemed essential
to life If a woman 1 as additional obligations to a husband and existing chil-
« I, ,i I ' iwlv obliged in justice to seek an abortion in order to safe-
Kuanl no, nnh her own life but also the well-being of her family, no matter
bow repugnant and heart-rending this decision.
STATEMENT ON BKIIALF OF CATHOLICS FOK A FREE CHOICE
I as an Individual, and as the representative of the Board of Directors of
Catholics *>r il Free Choice, a national organization dedicated to the principle
th" women have the righl and duty to follow their conscience regarding
decisions on abortion and contraception and that the law has a corresponding
rieht and duty to make it possible for them to implement those choices under
medically safe conditions. In this respect we are wholeheartedly in favor of
Hi,. Supreme Court decisions and commend the Justices of that court for tDeir
W However, I would hasten to add that when abortions are performed, they
should he followed by contraceptive counseling so as to prevent, if at all
possible, the Deed for future abortions.
We consider abortion to be a serious moral problem and while we are not
■for abortion" across the hoard, we nonetheless believe there are many serious
reasons that could justify taking the life of the fetus.
Such reasons we would consider are extreme poverty, mental illness, grave
or crippling physical disease of the mother, rape, incest, the possibility of a
deformed fetus and grave risk to the life of the mother. Another reason, though
none less valid, would be the positive unwillingness of the woman to carry the
pregnancy to term, for we can think of nothing more detrimental to a human
baby than to be born to a mother who hated its very existence.
Catholic women as well as non-Catholic women are driven to abortion which
is often their only recourse, as a last resert when contraception is denied them
or fails to work effectively. The Catholic Church in prescribing "rythm" as a
means of birth control is completely unrealistic and is indeed causing more
abortions by its unrelenting stand on birth control. "Rythm" or "Vatican Rou-
lette' as I refer to it is absurd; to wit. in my case — I have five lovely daugh-
ter< whom I refer to as "The Rythmairres". During my last two pregnancies,
I almost died. I have laid my life on the line for the Catholic Church those
last two times and do not intend to do it again.
Our hierarchy and priests ami laity have an obligation in charity and jus-
tice to at leasl talk to their own Catholic people on this matter. With very
tare and brave exceptions, like Father Joseph O'Rourke, they haven't been
doing it.
It would also help matters considerably if Catholics would stop the un-
christian nameealling and labelling everyone who disagree with them as
"murderers" and "abortionists" .and listen to the "other" side for a change.
Right and reason have not always been on the "Catholic" side, as witness the
ongoing contraception debate in the Church.
Mr. Bayh and members of the Committee. I hope I have pointed out to you
today how the Catholic Church has not held a firm position on the issues of
abortion and contraception, but has changed through the centuries, depending
on who was in "office" Our present-day hierarchy seem to have amnesia on this
subject or have not done their homework and are unaware of their own
Church history.
The Catholic hierarchy should follow the teaching of one of the early Doe-
tors ,,f the Church. Tertullian, who, in the third century spoke to women on
the subject of abortion ;
"In this matter. ( abortion i there is no more fitting teacher, judge, witness,
than on,. ,,f this sei (female). Reply, you mothers, you bearers of children, let
'< (hierarchy) and masculine be silent, the truth of your nature is
-oiil'Ii! " It.. Aniina 25.5
Catholics for a Free Choice and myself thank you for the opportunity to
speak here before you today.
ABORTION
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1974
U.S. Sex ate,
Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments
of the Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 :10 a.m., in room
2228, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Birch Bayh (chairman
of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senator Bayh (presiding).
Also present, J. William Heckman, Jr., chief counsel; Barbara
Dixon, research assistant; and Teddie Phillips, assistant chief clerk.
Senator Bayh. We will reconvene our hearings, with an apology
to our distinguished panelists. I had a vote, so I am sorry to keep
you waiting.
Our witnesses today are a very distinguished group of panelists:
Prof. John T. Xoonan, Jr., professor of law, University of Califor-
nia, Berkeley; Prof. John Ely, professor of law at Harvard Uni-
versity; Prof. Laurence H. Tribe, professor of law at Harvard;
Prof. Philip B. Heyman, professor of law. Harvard University.
I will let you gentlemen proceed. Did you flip a coin to decide who
goes first or shall we just proceed with the order that I just read?
Mr. Noonon. That is fine.
Senator Bayh. All right, we will do it that way then. Please
proceed.
STATEMENT OF JOHN T. NOONAN, JR., PROFESSOR OF LAW,
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
Mr. Xoonan. You have before you proposals to amend the Con-
stitution of the United States as it was interpreted by the Supreme
Court of the United States on January 22, 1973. To resolve by
constitutional amendment, an impasse created by the Court, or to
correct gross and substantial error committed by the Court, is neither
improper nor unprecedented. The 16th amendment became inevitable
after the Court had decided Pollock v. Fanners Loan and Trust
Company. The 14th amendment was the necessary answer, after
bloody war, to Bred Scott v. Sanford. A proper balance between
the organs of government and the people requires that no determi-
nation by a governmental body be irreversible and no fundamental
distortion beyond popular correction.
Seventy years agso a majority of the Supreme Court held that the
14th amendment was violated by New York limiting the hours of
(213)
214
bakers to 60 hours a week. Such legislation, the Court said, deprived
the employers of the bakers and the bakers themselves of a basic
liberty of contract. In dissent, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,
wrote :
The Hih amendmenl does not enacl Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics.
I think that the word liberty in the 14th amendment is perverted when it is
held to prevenl the natural outcome <>f a dominant opinion unless it can be
s ; ,i,l thai a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute
proposed would Infringe fundamental principles as they have been under-
d by the traditions of our people and our law.
The standard set out by Justice Holmes was prophetic. It is ger-
mane to vour deliberations today. Common law restricting abortion
; old as the Constitution. The people of all 50 States had statutes
dating abortion in force on January 22, 1973. By virtue of Roe
\. Wade and Doe v. Bolton these statutes became constitutionally
defunct. Would a fair and reasonable man be compelled to admit
that every one of these statutes had in fact infringed fundamental
principles as those principles have been understood by our people
and our law? I invite you to apply Holmes' criterion to what the
Court decided in the Abortion Cases.
In the less than '2 years in the lapse since the Abortion Gases
were decided, the courts have spelled out in detail their implications
and underlined their ominous significance for American society.
The principal consequences are three: First, the subversion of the
structure of the family in that a father now has no protectable legal
interest in its unborn offspring; second, the mandated public funding
of abortion so it is unlikely that a national health bill can be
enacted, which constitutionally excludes abortion from the surgical
services to he federally financed; and third, and worst of all, the
unmaking of human beings, the acceptance of the principle that
the law can say who is not a human being. All of our constitutional
liberties are nothing if we can be defined out of the human species.
In I>n (I Scott v. San ford the Supreme Court declared that a
descendant of African slaves could never be a citizen of the United
State-. Vet even that mosl dreadful of decisions did not carry so
far as Roe and Doe. These decisions, as now interpreted by the
courts, arrogate to the courts the power to decide who is human.
Hear, for example. Child" Judge Pettine of Providence, ruling on
a Rhode Island statute enacted after Roe and Doe. which expressly
declared that in Rhode [sland the person commences to exist at the
instanl of conception. The State produced witnesses with credentials
the judge acknowledged to he impressive to testify that the embryo
was a member of the human species. I quote Judge Pettine: '"I
neither summarize nor make any findings of fact as to their testi-
mony. To me the United State- Supreme Court made it unmistakably
dear that the question of when life begins needed no resolution by
the judiciary as it was not a question of fact. I find it irreleyant to
all the issues presented for adjudications." Once the Supreme Court
had ruled that a fetus was not a person, it was. Judge Pettine held,
'frivolous ' for a State to try to show the contrary.
Lawyers air used to dealing with presumptions, with creations
of law. with fictions. At first appearance the denial of humanity to
tne fetus m;iv appear as jusl another fiction, not more shocking than
215
many other fictions necessary for the working of law. For the pur-
poses of the 14th amendment, the fetus is not human; for the pur]
of the Social Security Act, the fetus is human- -distinctions of this
kind are common in the law. What is shocking, repelling, fatal in
this distinction, in this fiction is that the courts here assume the power
to exclude a species of humanity in determining fundamental pro-
tection under the Constitution and to exclude that specie- beyond
the power of any legislature to restore.
If, by constitutional fiction, persons only exist at birth, by another
constitutional fiction persons may cease to exist at 80. The Supreme
Court itself hints at such a standard in Roe by referring to a fetus 1
lack of "meaningful life." If what seven judges view as meaningful
life is the test of personhood for the Constitution, if facts are irrele-
vant in determining who is entitled to constitutional protection, the
judiciary has absolute power to contract the protection of the Consti-
tution to the healthy or the mentally alert.
By Holmes' standard, what kind of constitution-making is this?
Are fundamental principles as understood by the provisions of our
people and our law infringed if a State calls attention to the facts
and says, "You are mistaken. The child is human?"
Proposed regulations of the Department of Health, Education,
and "Welfare on sex discrimination in federally assisted programs of
education now read: "For the purpose of this subpart, 'pregnancy'
means the entire process of pregnancy, childbirth, and recovery there-
from, and includes false pregnancy, miscarriage, and abortion."
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength," and of
government departments the ministry of love is "the really fright-
ening one." I quote of course from "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by
George Orwell. Even Orwell did not imagine a world in which
the ministry of health defines pregnancy to include abortion. Nor
did he imagine a society in which childbearing capacity is analogized
to a tumor causing neurological problems, in which a father has no
protectable legal interest in the life of the child he has begotten, in
which the State need not pay for childbirth but must pay for
abortion, and in which biological facts are irrelevant to the definition
of human life. Yet to that society we have come through our courts
in the second year after Roe and Doe.
What is necessary is law setting the country in a different direc-
tion, the direction of distinguishing between death and life. No
a law than an amendment to the Constitution can effect this change.
The States are helpless. All of the efforts of the people have been
struck down. Only an amendment can now change the law.
At issue is the balance of power between the Federal judiciary
and the States. At issue is the structure of the family as the legally
recognized union of female and male endowed with equal right-.
At issue is the role of government in sponsoring the taking of life
through government medical services and health care progra
Above all, at issue is the law's ability to defend the life of every
member of the human species.
An amendment cannot speak on these issues with the precision of
a criminal code, dotting every i, resolving every contingency. An
amendment can speak on the" grand lines of the 1st, 5th, or llth
amendments, educating the country. In the bicentennial of our birth,
210
an amendmenl can set out the values on which our policy depends, it
can correct the perversion of liberty in Roe and Doe, it can restrain
the State from taking life, it can recognize that the most precious
liberty is the liberty to live and restore the possibility of protecting
h\ law a uniquely vulnerable portion of the human species.
[The prepared statement of John T. Noonan, Jr. follows:]
Statement of John T. Noonan, Jr., Professor of Law, University of
California, Berkeley
My oame is .John T. Noonan, Jr. I am a professor law at the University of
California, Berkeley, where 1 teach courses in family law, population pro-
grams, jurisprudence, and legal ethics in the law .school and courses in mar-
riage and the family iu the Graduate Department of History. I am the author
ne book on the history of attitudes toward contraception, and I am the
editor of a second book on the legal and moral issues involved in abortion. I
come here al litis Commit tec's invitation, at this Committee's expense, and as
the representative of Q0 organization or group.
Xou ha\c before you proposals to amend the Constitution as it was inter-
preted by the Supreme Court of the United States on January 22, 1973. To
resolve by constitutional amendment an impasse created by the Court, or to
correct gross and substantial error committed by the Court, is neither im-
proper nor unprecedented. The 16th amendment became inevitable after the
Court had derided Pollock V. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company} The 14th
amendment was the necessary answer, after bloody war, to Drcd Scott v. San-
ford.* A proper balance between the organs of government and the people re-
quires that no determination by a governmental body be irreversable and no
fundamental distortion beyond popular correction.
Seventy years ago a majority of the Supreme Court held that the 14th
amendment was violated by New York limiting the hours of bakers to 60 hours
a week. Such legislation, the Court said, deprived the employers of the bakers
of a basic liberty.' In dissent Justice Oliver Wendell Holms, Jr. wrote: "The
1 tth amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics. * * * I
think that the word liberty in the 14th amendment is perverted when it is
held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion unless it can be
said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute
proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood
by the traditions of our i>eople and our law."'
The standard set out by Justice Holmes was prophetic. It is germane to your
deliberations today. Common law restricting abortion is as old as the Constitu-
tion. Thse people of all 50 states had statutes regulating abortion in force on
January 22, 1973.* Would a fair and reasonable man be compelled to admit
that every one of these statutes had in fact infringed fundamental principles
principles have been understood by our people and our law? I invite
you to apply Holmes' criterion to what the Court decided in the Abortion
Cast 8.
I. what THE SUPREME COURT DECIDED IN R0€ V. Wade AND Doe V. Bolton
•nfnsion lias persisted as to what the Court actually decided in Roc and
!>.,<. in part because of the inordinate length of the opinions, in part because
certain wooliness in their composition, and in part because of inaccurate
rtlng by the media. I have noticed that even ardent opponents of abortion
sometimes imitate and underestimate the sweep of the Court's holdings
Hi Court did not decide that at the end of the second trimester the child in
the womb could, in some fashion, be protected— it expresslv said that viability.
- of protection could be Riven, was "usually placed at serin
(emphasis supplied). 7 The Court did not sav that the child after 7
'-nth. had the rights of a person \t expressly said that "the unborn have
recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense" femnhasis
supplied, ll„. Court did not hold that after 7 months, the State could pro-
h i n " •'•""'ion it expressly held in Roe a prohibition even in the last 2 months
, ,', "''''"'I '" exception in favor of "the life or health of the
mothor (empha»1« «nppliod>.« The Court went on to say in Dor that "the
: end "f article.
217
medical judgment may he exercised in the light of all factors physical, emo-
tional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age — relevant to the well-being
of the patient. All these factors may relate to health." 1 "
Putting health in terms of •well-being", the Court created a basis for an
abortion such that no physician could ever be prevented by law from perform-
ing an abortion that he believed was for the well-being of the woman who
requested it. In a concurring opinion Chief Justice Burger said "plainly the
Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortion on
demand." 11 But if no barrier can be constitutionally set by law to the doctor's
discretion to operate, abortion on demand exists as long as there arc doctors
willing to answer a request for an abortion.
The Court did decide that somewhere in the Constitution— "we fed". tin-
Court said, that the location is in the 14th amendment's requirement that
liberty be restricted only by due process" there was a right of privacy,
right was not express. The Court discovered it. The right was broad enougb
to give every woman a right to abortion. On this inference from an inference.
or implication from an implication, the Court bottomed its reasoning.
The right to privacy. Chief Justice Burger said elsewhere, has "tenuous
moorings in the Constitution." 111 Anchored to this tenuously moored right, the
right to an abortion was ranked by the Court with those personal rights that
can be deemed "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.""
A right directly contrary to what had been the law of the land the Court now
proclaimed to be basic and necessary to "ordered liberty."
This new constitutional liberty, the Court found, was subject to the State's
interest in protecting the mother's health. The State might— the Court ap-
peared to say — constitutionally require that all abortions be recommended by
physicians. The State might — the Court clearly said — after the first trimester
require that abortion be performed in facilities licensed by the state. 1 "' With
these thin qualifications, the woman's right to an abortion was absolute ex-
pressly so, in the Court's holdings, before the child's viability, inferential!.
by the Court's definition of health as well-being and the subjection of the child
to the mother's well-being in the last two months. In effect, if not in exj
terms. Roe v. Doc made abortion on demand the law of the land. 1 "
Nothing in precedent, nothing in our traditions, nothing in history justified
the majority's interpretation of the term liberty. As constitutional law, its
action deserves the severe reproach Justice Benjamin R. Curtis made to his
brethren wdio decided Dred Scott v. Sanford: "Political reasons have not the
requisite certainty to afford rules of judicial interpretation. They are differ-
ent in different men. They are different in the same men at different times.
* * * We are under the government of individual men. who for the time being
have power to deduce what the Constitution is. according to their own views
of what it ought to mean." 1T The same rebuke, in different language, was con-
veyed in Justice Byron White's description of the majority action in I'o< v.
Doc as an exercise in "raw judicial power." '"
By Holmes' standard this radical creation of a new liberty in the Constitu-
tion was justified only if a reasonable and fair man would have been com-
pelled to agree that the 50 states had been infringing fundamental principles.
Once the Court had spoken the laws of every state on abortion were constitu-
tionally defunct. For the first time in the history of our country, the live
one large portion of the human species were without the protection of law.
II. THE CONSEQIEXCES OF ROC AND Doc
In the less than two years that has elapsed since The Abortion Cases were
decided, the courts have spelled out in detatil their implications and underlined
their ominous significance for American society. The principal consequences are
First. The Subversion of the Structure of the Family.
1. The Supreme Court noted deliberately in Roe that it was not deciding the
constitutionality of a statute requiring a father's consent for a legal abor-
tion. 10 The Court set up. however, such an unqualified right in a mother to
dispose of her offspring while alive within her body that it was almost in-
evitable that a father's interest would be treated as negligible. A three-judge
federal court in Florida interpreted Roe and Doe to mean that the State had
no interest to protect in the young fetus, and that if the State had no inter
See footnotes at end of article.
218
the State could nol create an interest in the father. A Florida statute requir-
e the »nsent was held unconstitutional.
in Utah a statue was enacted alter tfoe and L>oc to require that the father
.■ t .."f«ii that tlii- mother be counselled as to the alternatives to abortion and
/'judicial hearing be promptly held to ascertain that the consent and
1 Led g ad been given. A three-judge federal court invalidated the entire
l v, said Chief Judge Hitter, unconstitutional to subject "exercise of
Sr*lndivldual right* privacy of the mother" to "the consent of others or to
"^T^KdwUAons Roe and Doe are seen to stand for a view of a woman's
dominion over her ofEspring in which the fathers role in the child's procreation
is ignmcd and the fathers concern for his offspring's welfare is given a zero
value. The father is simply classified with "others."
2 The Loortto* r«.*< * were applied in Alabama to affect the action of a local
1 board setting standards for the conduct of public school teachers. An
unmarried teacher became pregnant and sought information from a hospital
about abortion. Word of her condition came to the board of education of
Covington County, which, after a hearing, fired her for immoral behavior. A
three-judge federal court held the Alabama statute permitting the discharge of
teachers for immorality to be unconstitutional as applied to this teacher. The
court held that the right of privacy created by Roe and Doe had been
Lnfring , . , ,
hing is as much by conduct as by words. A school system which employs
pregnant unmarried women teaches a view of marriage more eloquently than
a hundred textl ks on social ethics. Yet the Supreme Court itself in Roe and
had made a point of treating the married and the unmarried plaintiffs
tly alike. The federal court in Alabama only went a slight step further in
ting the unmarried woman's right to an abortion as superior to any interest
or the State in teaching that the procreation of children should occur only in
marriage.
The family has been under assault by extreme groups in our society and
under question by others. It remains, in Justice Roger Traynor's words, "the
basic unit of our society"; and, as he put it, "since the family is the core of
our society, the law seeks to foster and preserve marriage." 23 Ultra-feminist
interpretations of the Constitution by the courts strikes at the institution. By
Holmes' standard is constitutional decisionmaking of this kind justifiable?
Would a rational and fair man necessarily admit that the Alabama, Florida,
and Utah statutes infringed fundamental principles as they have been under-
id by our people and our law? Rather, have not our people and our law
always treated marriage as the meeting of two persons, equal in their love and
concern for their children, united in a status privileged and fostered by law? 2 *
If the Constitution did not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics, neither
did it enact Ms. Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch.
"/. The Mandated Public Funding of Abortion.
ind Doc as interpreted by the federal courts not only treat the
procreation of children atomistically as if it were the individual activity
of women, married and unmarried. They require that public funds be spent
on abortion if public funds are spent on health. They make it highly unlikely,
for example, that a national health bill can be enacted which constitutionally
excludes abortion from the services to be federally financed.
The cases arr these: Nyberg v. City of Virginia, Doe v. Wohlgemuth and
Aiello V. Eas8(
iberg, decided by the federal district court in Minnesota, held that a
municipal hospital must provide abortion services and invalidated the hospital's
triction of abortion to that necessary to save a mother's life. Judge Neville
Mid, ! to this court that Roe V. Wade leaves no room for exception or
for equivocation. Its mandate is clear and explicit." Applying it, he required
"the hospital administrators to take positive steps within a period of 30 days
from date hereof to provide abortion services and facilities to licensed phvsi-
• ••»»■
!. Wohlgemuth held unconstitutional a portion of Pennsylvania's medical
under the Social Security Act. The program compensated
abortions performed when continuation of pregnancy threatened the
Itfl or life of the mother, but did not pay for elective abortions. Speaking
f article.
219
for a three-judge federal court, Judge Snyder held that the program "deprived
the women who choose abortions of the equal protection rights guaranteed by
the 14th amendment." The state, he said, could not "justify ou the basis
financial integrity" a regulation excluding a woman who exercised her con-
stitutional right not to bear a child. 26
3. Aicllo held unconstitutional a California statute exempting pregnancy-
related work loss from coverage under the state disability program. Without
distinguishing between disability due to normal childbirth and disability due
to an abortion, a three-judge federal court held that the state must pay for all
pregnancy-related disabilities. No rational distinction, the court held, could be
drawn between disability due to an abortion and disability due to delivery of a
child."" 7 On appeal the Supreme Court held that the state need not compensate
for work loss due to normal childbirth.-' The state of California failed to appeal
the ruling that it must pay for abortions.
The general principle of these cases was put in a ease from the First Circuit
where, after Roe and Doe were decided, the federal court ruled that the City
of Worcester must provide sterilization services in its municipal hospital. The
State, Judge Coffin wrote, could not "constitutionally draw the line at medi-
cally indistinguishable surgical procedures that impinge on fundamental
rights."™ The city hospital was bound by statute to care for persons "requir-
ing relief during temporary sickness." The hospital performed surgery on
"benign tumors which caused subsequent neurological problems." The "appel-
lant's capacity for childbearing", the court ruled, should be treated similarly
as a form of sickness. 30
As long as these interpretations of Roe and Doc are the law, the states and
the Congress will not, it seems, be able to create health programs which, in
providing surgical assistance, draw the line at elective abortion. Again, by
Holmes' standard, is this good constitutional law? Must a reasonable and fair
man agree that fundamental principles as understood by our people and by our
law have been infringed when the majority of people of a state act through
their legislatures to deny government support to abortion? Roe and Doe, as
interpreted, have read the 14th amendment to create a right to the public
financing of abortion.
Third. The Unmaking of Human Beings.
The worst of the consequences of Roc and Doc is the acceptance of the
principle that the law can say who is not a human being. All of our con-
stitutional liberties are nothing if we can be defined out of the human spe-
cies. In Drcd Scott v. Sanford the Supreme Court declared thai the descend-
ant of Africans could never be a citizen of the United States. 1 ' 1 but even that
most dreadful of decisions did not carry so far as Roe and Doc. These de-
cisions, as now interpreted by the courts, arrogate to the courts the power
to decide who is human.
Hear, for example. Chief Judge Pettine in Providence, ruling on a Rhode
Island statute, enacted after Roc and Doc. which expressly declared that in
Rhode Island a person "commences to exist at the instant of conception." 1 '
The State produced witnesses with credentials the judge acknowledged to
be impressive to testify that the embryo was a member of the human species.
"I neither summarize nor make any findings of fact as to their testimony. To
me the United States Supreme Court made it unmistakably clear that the
question of when life begins needed no resolution by the judiciary as it was
not a question of fact. ... I find it irrelevant to all the issues presented for
adjudications." 33 Once the Supreme Court had ruled that a fetus was not n
person, it was, Judge Petine held, "frivolous" for a state to try to show the
contrary. 34 The Rhode Island statute was invalidated. The "First Circuit
affirmed. The Supreme Court refused to review the ruling that Rhode Island
had acted so frivolously that a single federal judge could annul its legisla-
tion. 38
Lawyers are used to dealing with presumptions with creations of law. with
fictions. At first appearance the denial of humanity to the fetus may appear
as just another fiction, not more shocking than many other fictions necessary
for the working of law. For the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, the
fetus is not human; for the purpose of the Social Security Act, the fetus i^
human 38 — distinctions of this kind are common in the law. What is shocking,
repelling, fatal in this distinction, in this fiction is that the courts here assume
the power to exclude a species of humanity in determining fundamental pro-
See footnotes at end of article.
See footnotes at end of article.
220
ttM , lllU ^er the Constitution and to exclude that species beyond the power
01 FfSZSS&STEU Persons only exist at jirMj a^ =
lD S ?£ ;■ i f e^st?SrrfaS W a?e S ESSSfflSiSlff wL^s
SSSS ^«£lS3£?SS^ the judiciary has absolute power to con-
tact toe Protection of the Constitution to the Healthy or the menta lly alert.
Hv Bolmes" standard, what kind of constitution-making u this' By any
»fWDtable Btandard what kind of constitution-making is this.' Must a rea-
ffi b SLTS?Sn agree that, when seven members of the Supreme Court
decide thai the offspring of human persons is not a human person, runua
e , tal principles as understood by our people and our law are infringed if a
State calls attention to the facts and says, "You are mistaken. Ihe child is
bum an."
III. WHAT MUST BE DONE
Proposed regulations of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
on sei discrimination in federally assisted programs of education now read:
•For the purpose of this subpart, •pregnancy' means the entire process of
pregnancy, childbirth, and recovery therefrom, and includes false pregnancy,
irriage, and abortion." "
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength", and of govern-
ment departments the Ministry of Love is "the really frightening one. I
quote of course from Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Even Orwell
did nol imagine a world in which the Ministry of Health defines pregnancy to
include abortion. Nor did he imagine a society in which ehildbearing capacity
nalogized to a tumor causing neurological problems, in which a father has
no interest in the life of the child he has begotten, in which the State need not
pay for childbirth but must pay for abortion, and in which biological facts are
irrelevant to the definition of human life. Yet to that society we have come
througb our courts in the second year after Roe and Doe.
c.urts are not omnipotent. They do not act alone. They interact with other
fan mis in the social stream. But they can give a powerful impetus to par-
ticular factors. Their decisions, especially those of the Supreme Court, select
and sanctify certain principles and thereby educate our people. These de-
cisions have selected and sanctified principles of death.
What is necessary is law setting the country in the direction of distinguish-
ing between death and life. No less a law than an Amendment to the Con-
stitution can effect this change. The states are helpless. Minnesota has seen
municipal hospitals compelled to provide abortion. 40 California, New York
and Pennsylvania have seen themselves compelled to fund abortions. 41 Alabama
lias seen its moral standard for school teachers set aside. 42 Arizona, Con-
ticut, Florida. Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky. Maryland, Michigan, Montana,
Rhode Island. South Carolina. Texas. Utah and Wyoming have seen their
tutes on abortion formally declared unconstitutional. 4 " It has made no
difference to the courts that large popular votes before Roc and Doe rejected
change in the statutes, as in Michigan in November 1972. ** It has made no
difference that the legislatures attempted to act within the openings they
thought /.''« and Doe had left as did Rhode Island and Utah. 45 The judges
have not doubted that they knew better what liberty in the Fourteenth
Amendment requires. All the attempts of the people have been struck down.
Only an Amendment can now change the law.
At Issue is the balance of power between the federal judiciary and the
W issue is the structure of the family as the legally recognized union
of female and male endowed with equal rights. At issue is the role of gov-
ernment in sponsoring the taking of life through government medical services
and health care programs. Ahove all, at issue is the law's ability to defend
the life of every member of the human species.
An Amendment cannot speak on these issues with the precision of a crimi-
nal code, dotting every i. resolving every contingency. An Amendment can
on the grand lines of the First, Fifth, or Fourteenth Amendments,
• not.s at end of article.
221
educating the country. In the bicentennial of our birth, an Amendment can
set out the values on which our polity depends, it can correct the pervi
of liberty, in Roe and Doe, it can restrain the State from taking life, it can
recognize that the most precious liberty is tbe liberty to live and restore the
possibility of protecting by law a uniquely vulnerable portion of the human
species.
*157 U.S. 429 (1895).
2 19 How. 393 (1856).
3 Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
* Ibid, at 75 (dissent).
6 See John T. Noonan, Jr., ed.. The Morality of Abortion: Legal and Historical Per-
spectives (1970) 223-225.
» Ibid. 225, 248-250.
7 Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) at 160.
8 Ibid, at 162.
»Ibid. at 165.
10 Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973) at 1972.
11 Ibid, at 208 (concurrence)
12 Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 at 153.
"Eisenstadt v. Baud, 405 U.S. 43S at 472 (dissent) (1972).
14 Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 at 152, quoting Palko v. Connecticut, 302 0.8 319
325 (1937).
is Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 at 163. At 163 the Court says that the States "com-
pelling interest" in the mothers health begins only at the end of "the first trimest-r
At 164 the Court says the abortion decision in the first trimester "must be left to
the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician."
w For a further analysis, see Noonan, "Raw Judicial Power", National Review
March 3, 1973 [attached hereto as Appendix A].
17 Drcd Scott 17. Sanford, 19 How. 393 at 620 (dissent).
™Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 at 222 (dissent).
18 floe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 at 165.
20 Coe v. Oerstein, Reporter on Human Reproduction and the Law I-C-2 (S.D. Fla.,
August 13, 1973), appeal dismissed for want of jurisdiction, 42 U.S. Law Week :;•;•;
(1974).
^Doe v. Rampton, 366 F. Supp. 189 (D. Utah, September 7, 1973).
22 Drake V. Covington County Board of Education, 371 F. Supp. 974 (N.D. Ala.
January 23, 1974).
^DeBurgh v. DeBurgh, 39 Cal.2d 858 at 863, 250 P.2d 598 at 601 (1952).
24 For a discussion of Roe and Doe in the context of recent Supreme Court decisions
touching marriage and the family, see Noonan, "The Family and the Supreme Court",
23 Cath. Univ. L. Rev. 255 (1974) [attached hereto as Appendix B].
^Nyberg v. City of Virginia, 361 F. Supp. 932 at 938 (D. Minn. 1973).
28 Doe v. Wohlgemuth, Reporter on Human Reproduction and the Law I-C-49 (W. 1).
Penn., May 3, 1974) (Judge Weis dissenting).
27 Aiello v. Hassen, Reporter on Human Reproduction and the Law I-C-50 (I>. No
Cal., March 31, 1973) (Judge Williams dissenting)
^Oedulgig v. Aiello, 94 S. Ct. 2485 (June 17, 1974).
29 Hathaway v. Worcester City Hospital, 475 F.2d 701 at 706 (1st Clr., March 22.
1973).
30 Ibid, at 705.
™Dred Scott v. Sanford, 19 How. 393 at 403, 427 (1858).
32 Rhode Island Criminal Abortion Statute 73-S287, Substitute A, Rhode Island
General Laws, sec. 11-3-1, set out in Doe v. Israel, 358 F. Supp. 193 (D.R.I., May 16,
1973).
&Doe v. Israel, 35S F. Supp. 1193 at 1197.
34 Ibid, at 1199.
35 42 U.S. Law Week 3632 (May 13. 1974).
38 E.g. Doe v. Lukhard, 493 F.2d 54 (4th Clr. 1974).
37 floe r. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 at 163 (1973).
38 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, "Education Programs and Aetlv
ltles Receiving or Benefitting from Federal Financial Assistance", 86.47(c), Federal
Register, June 20, 1974, p. 22237.
39 George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) 17-ls.
40 Nyberg v. City of Virginia, supra n. 25.
"Klein v. Nassau County Medical Center, 347 F. Supp. 490 (E.I). N.Y. 1973);
Wohlgemuth v. Doe, supra n. 26.
42 Drake v. Covington County Board of Education, supra, n. 22.
"Arizona: Nelson v. Planned Parenthood Center of Tucson, Inc., 19 Ariz. App 142,
505 P.2d 580, 590 (1973); Connecticut: Abcle V. Markle, 369 F. Supp. 807 (D. Conn
1973) ; Florida : Coe v. Oerstein, Reporter on Human Reproduction ami the Law
I-C-2 (S.D. Fla. 1973); Georgia: Doe V. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973); Iowa: Do
Turner, 361 F. Supp. 12SS (S.D. Iowa 1973). Kentucky: Sasaki r. Commonwealth. 491
S.W.2d 713 (1973); Maryland: State v. Ingel, 1^ Md. App. 514, 308 V-M 223 (197
Michigan: People v. Bricker, 389 Mich. 524, 208 N.W.2d 173 (1973); Montana: Dot
v. Woodall, Reporter on Human Reproduction and the Law I-C-30 (D. Mont liiT.'t'
Rhode Island: Doe v. Israel, 358 F. Supp. 1193 (D.R.I. 197:;). affirmed 4S2 F.2d 156;
cerr. denied 42 U.S. Law Week 3632 (1974); South Carolina: State v. Lawrence, ins
S.E.2d (1973); Texas: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973); Utah: Doe v. Hampton,
366 F. Supp. 189 (1973); Wyoming: Doe r. Burk, Reporter on Human Reproduction
and the Law I-C-9 (1973).
"■Time, November 13, 1972.
45 Supra, a. 21 and 32.
222
Appendix A
Raw Judcial Power
(By John T. Noonan, Jr.)
On January 22, P.)73, the Supreme Court of the United States deciding
R(H v. Wmli ami !>'„■ v. Bolton announced that a new personal liberty existed
in tlu- Constitution— the liberty of a woman to procure the termination of
her pregnancy at any time in its course. The Court was not sure where the
Constitution had mentioned this right, although the Court was clear that
the Constitution had not mentioned it explicitly. "We feel," said Justice Black-
mum for the majority, "that the right is located in the Fourteenth Amend-
ment s concept of personal liberty," but he thought that it also could be placed
•in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people" (Wade, pp.
37-3* i. Vague as to the exact constitutional provision, the Court was sure of
its power to proclaim an exact constitutional mandate. It propounded a doc-
trine on human life which had, until then, escaped the notice of the Congress
of the United .States and the legislators of all fifty states. It set out criteria
it said were required by the Constitution which made invalid the regulation
of abortion in every state in the Union, the District of Columbia, the Com-
monwealth of Puerto Rico, and the City of New York. No one of these bodies
had read the Constitution right.
Wherever the liberty came from in the Constitution and however recent
its discovery was, it was of a very high rank. It deserved to be classified as
"fundamental" and as "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" (Wade,
p. 37). With these characterizations, the right took its place with such founda-
tions of* civilized society as the requirement of fair, public trials. Justice
Blackmum seemed to sense no incongruity in giving so basic a position to a
demand which had, until his opinion, been consistently and unanimously re-
ed by the people of the United States. He did not pause to wonder how
the nation had survived before January 22. 1973 in steadfastly repudiating a
right implied in the concept of ordered liberty.
Some of the legislation affected was old. going back to the mid-nineteenth
century, some was recent, reflecting the wisdom of the American Law Insti-
tute or containing explicit statements of intent to protect the fetus. Some of
the legislation had been continued by recent popular referenda, as in Michigan
and North Dakota; some of the legislation was in the process of repeal, as
in New York. Old or new, compromise or complete protection from conception,
passed by nineteenth-century males or confirmed by popular vote of both
(8, maintained by apathy or reaffirmed in vigorous democratic battle, none
of the existing legislation on abortion conformed to the Court's criteria. By
this basic fact alone. Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton may stand as the most
radical decisions ever issued by the Supreme Court.
That these opinions come from a Court substantially dominated by appointees
of ., President dedicated to strict construction of the Constitution, that they
should be drafted by a Justice whose antecedents are Republican, are ironies
which do not abate the revolutionary character of what the Court has done
in the exercise of whal Justice White, in dissent, calls "raw judicial power."
In rhetoric, the style is that of a judicial body. In substance, the opinions
could have been authored by Paul Ehrlich or Bella Abzug.
Radicalism marks not only the Court's treatment of the states and its
preference for the views of an elite to the results of democratic contests.
Radicalism is also the mark of the Court's results. In October 1963 Glanville
Williams, the spiritual father of abortion-on-demand, put the proposition to
the Abortion Law Reform Association that abortion be made a matter between
woman and physician up to the end of the third month. His proposal was
voted down by the then most organized advocates of abortion. In less than
ten yeara the Supreme Court has written into the Constitution a far more
radical doctrine By virtue of its opinions, human life has less protection in
the United States today than at any time since the inception of the country.
By virtue of its opinions, human life has less protection in the United States
than in any country of the Western world.
THE COURT'S HOLDINGS
Did the Court really go so far? Here is what it held:
Until a human being is "viable" or "capable of meaningful life," a state
has no compelling interest" which justifies it in restricting in any way in
223
favor of the fetus a woman's fundamental personal liberty of abortion ( Hade,
p. 48). For six months, or "usually" for seven months (the Court's reckoning,
p. 45), the fetus is denied the protection of law by virtue of either the Ninth
Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. After viability has been reached, the human being is not a person "in
the whole sense," so that even after viability he or she is nol protected
by the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee that life shall not he taken with-
out due process of law ( Wade, p. 47). At this point lie or she is, however,
legally recognizable as "potential life" {Wade, p. 48).
3. A sate may nonetheless not protect a viable human being by prevent-
ing an abortion undertaken to preserve the health of the mother ( Wade, p.
48). Therefore a fetus of seven, eight, or nine months is subordinated by
the Constitution to the demand for abortion predicated on health.
4. What the health of a mother requires in any particular case is a medi-
cal judgment to be "exercised in the light of all factors — physical, emo-
tional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age — relevant to the well-
being of the patient" (Bolton, pp. 11-12).
5. The state may require that all abortions be done by licensed physicians,
that after the first trimester they be performed in licensed "facilities," anil
that after viability they be regulated so long as "health" abortions are not
denied (Trade, p. 49). The state is constitutionally barred, however, from
requiring review of the abortion decision by a hospital committee or concur-
rence in the decision by two physicians other than the attending physician
(Bolton, p. 17, p. 19). The Constitution also prohibits a state from requiring
that the abortion be in a hospital licensed by the Joint Committee on Ac-
creditation of Hospitals or indeed that it be in a hospital at all (Bolton, pp.
14-15).
With belated misgivings, Chief Justice Burger concludes his breif concur-
rence in Justice Blackmun's opinion with the sentence: "Plainly, the Court
today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortion-on-demand."
Here is a desperate effort to recapture in a sentence what the Court has
given away in its list of criteria mandated by the Constitution. Plainly, there
cannot be the slightest argument that for the first six to seven months of
fetal exitence, the Court has made abortion-on-demand a constitutional right.
Opposed to the mother's "fundamental personal liberty," the embryo or fetus
is valued at precisely zero. His or her very existence seems to be doubted by
the Court which refers to the state's interest here not as an interest in actual
interest in actual lives but as an interest in a "theory of life" {Wade, p. 47).
The woman's right is treated as an absolute, abridgeable only for her own
sake by the requierments as to licensed physicians and facilities.
Abortion-on-demand after the first six or seven months of fetal existence
has been effected by the Court through its denial of personhood to the viable
fetus, on the one hand, and through its broad definition of health, on the
other. Because the seven-month-old fetus is not a person — cannot be a person
as long as it is a fetus— because it now bears the label "potential life," the
fetus is not a patient whose interest the physician must consult. In the
Court's scheme, the physician has one person as patient, the mother.
When the doctor considers the mother's health, he is to think in terms ol
the extensive definition of health first popularized by the World Health
Organization (WHO). According to the WHO declaration, health is "a state
of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not simply the absence
of illness and disease." The Supreme Court now affixes a seal of approval
to this definition, substituting "familial" for "social," but essentially equating
health with well-being. What physican could now be shown to have per-
formed an aborton, at any time in the pregnancy, which was not intended
to be for the well-being of the mother? What person would have difficulty in
finding a phvsician who, in full compliance with the Court's criteria, could
advise an abortion if the patient's emotional demand was intense enough?
Never before in British or American law has a baby in the last stages ol
pregnancy been so exposed to destruction at the desire of the parent.
THE COURT'S REASONING
How did this Supreme Court reach this extraordinary result? In part
through an inept use of history, in part through a schizophrenic style 01
judicial interpretation, in part through a conscious response to the needs
technocracy.
224
I ,, as took al the history. Justice Blackmun's opinion in Wade contains a
copious gob of it. (Wade, pp. 14-36). By and large it is a conscientious if
Parian review of the relevant literature. But it is a history that >s un-
digested— better said, it is history that has been untested. It has afforded no
nourishment to the mind of the judge who set it out. He has not let it
encage his spirit. He has not felt the pressure of loyalty to the persons of
the past who have shaped our culture. He has not responded as a person to
their perceptions.
rustice Blackinun describes with clarity the reason the American Medical
•elation led the flght in the nineteenth century for statutory protection of
the embryo "the popular ignorance of the true character of the crime— a
belief even among mothers themselves that the fetus is not alive till after
the period of quickening"; the consequent "unwarrantable destruction of
human life" before the fifth month. He concludes. "The attitude of the pro-
fession may have played a significant role in the enactment of stringent
abortion legislation during that period" [Wade, pp. 26-27). But the umm-
peachable facts are apparently forgotten when Justice Blackmun discusses
the claim that the purpose of American statutory law was not to protect
the fetus, but to protect the mother from sepsis or other risks attendant on
abdominal surgery in the unsanitary hospitals of the day. The Justice does
nut ask why the' statutes then bar abortion by drug, or why this kind of
surgery alone should have been made subject to the criminal law and cus-
tomarily classed among "Crime against the Person."
Tf Justice Blackmum can read the history, cite the American Medical As-
sociation jeremiads, and trace the development of the law. and yet be un-
ain as to the law's intent, it must be that he has failed to grasp, failed
to integrate, the purposes which animated our ancestors in laying down a
thick wall of protection about the baby in the womb. History for him has not
the evocation of persons in fidelity to their fundamental purposes. It
has been a charade which is shuffled off the stage when the display of learn-
ing i^ completed.
What of the schizoid style of judicial interpretation favored by the Jus-
i)n the one hand, he declares the Fourteenth Amendment, enacted in
1868, refers to ;i personal liberty which bad escaped attention for over a
century a liberty which, as Justice Rehnquist observes in dissent, would, if
noticed, have invalidated the state stattues on abortion in force in 1868.
Needless to say. not a single word of history is adduced to show that the
framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Congress which proposed it and
the states which passed it. intended to legitimize abortion. In this branch
of his opinion. Justice Blackmun is an evolutionist. Constitutions must be
re-interpreted or remade to speak to the times. If liberty means one thing
in TsiVs and .something entirely different in 1073. it is what one must expect
of a basic document exposed to a variety of times and conditions. As Justice
kmun says in an oblique reference to the process which he has followed,
his holding is consistent "with the demands of the profound problems of the
Wade, p. ."0).
On the other hand, in determining the meaning of "person" in the Four-
teenth Amendment's guarantee, the Justice is curiously wooden. He looks at
what person meant literally at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.
He notes what person must have meant in other clauses of the document. He
rves that fetuses are not enumerated in the census. But he does not ask if
the new biological data on the fetus compels the Court to be as evolutionary
in its definition of person as it is in its definition of liberty. He refrains
looking squarely at the fact of fetal existence. He takes the term person
f its meaning had been frozen forever. Contrary to the radical substance
of the rest of his opinion, he is here, uniquely, a strict constructionist.
ler the use of history nor the method of construing the Constitution
Why (lie Court reached the result it did: and the Court has been sc
curiously circumspect about revealing its reasoning that a commentator is
forced to fall back on hints and to resort to inferences. Four features of the
opinions are suggestive :
' •'■ kmun in an excusatory preamble states that he is aware of
motional nature of the abortion controversy" and concludes
admonition from Holmes that judges should not' brand a statute
nitional merely because it embodies opinions which to them are
■ •] and even shocking" (Wade, pp. 1-2). Would it be rash to support that
225
Justice Blackmun saw the appropriateness of this advice, even as be did not
follow it, when he encountered the opinion that a fetus is a person? To one
vocal segment of American thought, few things could be so novel or shock-
ing as the suggestion that a fetus has human right. If Justice Blackmun
accepted the viewpoint dominant in the media, he could readily have been
shocked at the postulates underlying the statutes on abortion.
2. "Population growth, pollution, poverty, and racial overtones" are men-
tioned by name only on page one of Wade as matters "tending to complicate
the problem." They then disappear from view only to be embraced in the
vague but comprehensive self-justification of the Court's holding: It is •con-
sistent with" the "demands of the profound problems of the present day"
(Wade, p. 50). Studiously ignored is the recommendation of the Rockefeller
Commission that abortion be used as a secondary form of population control.
Studiously ignored is the comment of black leaders like .lesse Jackson that
what is being prepared by the welfare bureaucrats is a program of genocide
in the womb. And yet the Court, looking back as it were on its handiwork.
says its holding responds to profound problems of the present. Whal prob
lems fall within the Court's solution but the problems id' controlling popula-
tion growth, the problems of the welfare bureaucracy curtailing welfare rolls'.'
3. The Court declares that if those trained in medicine, philosophy, and
theology are unable to arrive at a consensus as to when life begins, then
"the judiciary is not in a position to speculate as to the answer" ( Wade, p.
44). Incompetence in the area is avowed.
Three pages later, Justice Blackmum describes the abortion statute of Texas
as "adopting one theory of life" and rejects that theory as a ground for regu-
lating abortion. Is this the judiciary "speculating as to the answer'' or j s it
not? How can Texas — and the other states with comparable statutes — be
wrong in protecting fetal life against an arbitrary extinction unless the
majority of the Court knows better when life begins? The pretense of in-
competence seems to be humbug.
Beneath the avowal of incompetence is a commitment to a particular theol-
ogy or theory of human life. Life is an interest worthy of state protection
when it acquires the characteristic of "viability" or "the capability of mean-
ingful life outside the mother's womb." At this point, state protection has
"both logical and biological justification" (Wade, p. 48). At this point, in
short, life has characteristics that other humans may recognize. At this point,
functionally, the Justice says human life begins.
As both a logical and biological matter, however, viability depends entirely
on the relation of a human being's capacities to the environment in which
he or she is placed. As Andre Hellegers has pointed out an adult stripped
naked and placed on the North Pole suddenly becomes nonviable. Analogously,
a fetus ripped from his mother's womb suffers a sudden loss of the capability
to survive. In the environment in which he or she has been existing, however.
the fetus was as viable as any of us in our houses.
Neither logic nor biology seems to help in explaining why Justice Blackmum
chose the point in the continuum he picked for recognition. Hut he has
thrown out another phrase for our guidance — "capability id" meaningful life.''
Here, it may be, lies the heart of the matter. What it is appropriate for
the state to protect is not a human being, but a human being with the "capabil-
ity of meaningful life." Human life is defined in terms of this capability.
Qualitative standards of the life worthy of protection are to prevail, as
Joseph Fletcher is reported to have joyously greeted the decision. Our old
way of looking on all human existence as sacred is to be replaced by a new
ethic more discriminating in choosing who shall live and who shall die. The
concept of "meaningful life" is at the core of these decisions.
4. Who shall make the judgment that life has meaning or the capability
of meaning? On this key point, it is not. perhaps, unfair to suspect Justice
Blackmum of being an elitist, or, if one prefers, a technocrat.
The twin opinions breathe an extraordinary respect for the medical pro-
fession. Their explicit presupposition is that a "conscientious physician''
using his best professonal judgment — not "degraded" by having his judgment
reviewed by colleagues (Bolton, p. 16) — will determine whether the fetus shall
live or died. Turning the community's protection of human life over to the
judgment of the technician who will perform the operation. Justice Blackmum
goes so far as one judge could go to brin* about the technocratic Utopia BO
wittily and so unsparingly described in Brave New World.
226
A largo ironv of the opinions is this. The Fourteenth Amendment, made
;v by an earlier Supreme Court's attempt to make it legally impos-
Bible to protect the personal rights of a free hlack, is here made the source of
holdings which made it legally impossible to protect the personal rights of a
fetus. Forever denied the status of person "in the whole sense of the term,"
r subordinated to the psychological health of his mother, the baby in
imb has been deprived of the possibility of protection by state or fed-
eral law. It would be a waste of valuable energy to exert any effort at amend-
ing the abortion laws to achieve in the last two or three months of fetal
life the uncertain protection which the Court does not outalw.
major irony is that the Court's alternative authority for the right
to abort is the Ninth Amendment. This Amendment reads: "The enumeration
in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not lie construed to deny or dis-
parage otb.rs retained by the people." The people had already spoken on abor-
tion through the legislatures of fifty states. In Michigan and North Dakota.
crushing majorities of the people had. as recently as November 1972, re-
the demand that abortion be allowed on five-month-old fetuses. Who
would contend that what Justice Blackmum and his six colleagues legislated
could as law in Congress or in any popular referendum? How could
the rights of the people be more effectively "disparaged" by an elite than
veil members of a court to pronounce their efforts at controlling as-
saults on life to be unconstitutional?
These ironies suggest that the solution must be drastic. A majority which
will mock the people with the doctrines of technocratic elitism will not stay
its hand if confronted with new legislation not conforming to its sovereign
mandate. The root of the problem must be reached. Two lines of attack are
possible. They could be pursued concurrently:
First. The Court could be expanded from nine to 15. This solution could be
labeled "The Abraham Lincoln Solution." It is the idea he put forward in
the famous Lincoln- Douglas debates, when Douglas insisted that Dred Scott
was the law of the land. Douglas, he observed, had been one of five new
judges added to the Supreme Court of Illinois, "to break down the four old
ones." Was nut. he implied, a change in membership in the Court a constitu-
tional way of correcting a bad decision?
In many minds sensitive to the Court's place in our institutional structure
there must be reluctance to change the traditional number in response to a
particular decision. The "court-packing" plan of Franklin D. Rooseve't and
■i i ir opposition it engendered come to mind. Nonetheless, there is reason
why an expansion of the Court may he considered at this time as more than
an ad hoc answer to a decision. A committee appointed by the Chief Justice
himself (the "Freund Committee") has proposed that the Court be relieved
of many of its burdens by the creation of a national appellate for adjudication
by the Supreme Court itself. The plain implication of the proposal is that
nine justices are far too few to handle the enormous modern increase in the
Court's business. Expansion of the Court to 15 would meet this problem
directly without the disadvantage of bifurcating the functions of the highest
tribunal. Expansion can be rationally justified as a functional necessity at the
time that it affords a vehicle for restoring the rights of the people.
Expansion has a practical basis. Its political attractiveness does not need
underlining. It is, still, however a temporary response. It does not meet the
moral Issue at it- deepest level, it does not provide constitutional protection
for human life in the future.
The second possible course, then, is to follow the approach actually taken
' I Scott: Amend the Constitution. Under Wade and Bolton the
in never be a person within the Fourteenth Amendment, the people
can never vote (,, gi V€ effective protection fo the fetus. Verv well, let the
I Pie defend the fetus by a new amendment.
people might go further. They might defend not only humans in the
but all nonviable humans— all humans threatened with possible classi-
fication as being lacking the "capability of meaningful life." The infant
offering from genetic deficiencies, the retarded child, the insane or senile
potential victims of a "quality of life" mystique could
be defended by a Human Life Amendment to our Constitution.
227
APPENDIX B
The Family and the Supreme Courtt
John T. Noonan, Jr.*
The Court and the Status of Marriage; A Progress in Three Phases
The Supreme Court's treatment of marriage is conveniently divided into
three phases — Phase One, in which the Court was the self-proclaimed
defender of Christian marriage; Phase Two, in winch the Court was the
creator of partial marriage; and Phase Three, in which the Court became
the upholder of no marriage.
Phase One began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century when the
Court first concerned itself to a substantial degree with marriage. This
was the era of the Mormon polygamy cases. This was the era when Chief
Justice Waite sounded precisely like his contemporary, Pope Leo XIII,
in declaring marriage to be "from its very nature a sacred obligation"; 1
when Justice Matthews echoed the Book of Common Prayer in saying hus-
band and wife are united "in the holy estate of matrimony"; 2 when Justice
Field upheld an Idaho statute against bigamy because "[bjigamy and polyg-
amy are crimes by the laws of all civilized and Christian countries"; 3
and when Justice Bradley sustained the forfeiture of the property of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints because the organization of a
community for the practice of polygamy is "contrary to the spirit of Chris-
tianity and of the civilization which Christianity has produced in the West-
ern world." 4 The last time these words of Justice Bradley were quoted
t Originally delivered as the Ninth Annual Pope John XXT1I Lecture, the Catho-
lic University Law School, October 19, 1973. The Law Review takes pride in publishing
Professor Noonan's in-depth study of the inferences that may be drawn from the recent
decisions of the Supreme Court. The author is indebted for comments to Jesse Choper,
Caleb Footc, and Paul Mishkin.
* Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley; A.B., 1947 Harvard; M.A.,
1951; Ph.D., 1951 Catholic University of America; LL.B., 1954 Harvard.
1. Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 165 (1878); cf. Leo XIII, Arcanum
divinac sapienfiac, 12 Acta SANCTAr; SEDIS 385-88 (1880).
2. Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15,45 (1885).
3. Davis v. Benson, 133 U.S. 333, 341 (1890).
4. The Laic Corp. of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United
States, 136 U.S. 1, 49 (1890).
228
256 Catholic University Law Review [Vol. 23:255
with approval by the Court was 1946 by Justice Douglas, confirming the
conviction of certain fundamentalist Mormons as white slavers for marrying
more than one woman at one time. 5
Phase Two occurred at the time of World War II and its aftermath when
the rapid rise in marital breakups put the greatest strain upon the formal
divorce law of the states. The Court in Williams I r ' upheld a Nevada divorce
for visitors to Nevada from North Carolina; permitted in Williams IP the
state of North "Carolina to show that the visitors were, after all, North
Carolina domiciliaries over whom Nevada had no jurisdiction and whom
North Carolina might prosecute for bigamy; let Connecticut in Rice v.
Rice* treat as a widow in Connecticut the former wife of a Connecticut
resident who had received a divorce valid in Nevada; decided in May v.
Anderson 9 that a custody decree valid in Wisconsin would not bind one of
the parents who lived in Ohio; and held in Vanderbill v. Vanderbilt™ that
a divorce valid in Nevada and New York would not prevent an ex-Vander-
bilt spouse from obtaining a support order as a wife in New York.
The result of these decisions was that you could be free to marry in one
state and be liable in another to personal support of your former spouse,
stalulory claims on your estate, and prosecution for bigamy. You could
be entitled to your children in one court system and be denied your children
in another. You could be a somewhere wife or a somewhere husband. You
could be a husband who could not be a widower, a widower who could not
be a husband, a wife who could not be a widow, and a widow who could
not be a wife. 11 Rice v. Rice prompted Justice Jackson to invoke Macbeth:
"Confusion now hath made his masterpiece." 12 Vanderbilt v. Vanderbilt,
decided after fifteen years of wrestling with these issues, made Justice
Frankfurter exclaim the Court is "turning the constitutional law of marital
relations topsy-turvy." 13 The Court had created divisible divorce, mobile
marriage, or, most accurately, partial marriage.
Phase Three is modern. It began in 1968 with Levy v. Louisiana. 14
The Court held that a state may not discriminate against those born out of
wedlock in any action for the tortious death of a mother. In almost the
5. Cleveland v. United States, 329 U.S. 14, 19 (1946).
6 Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287 (1942).
7. Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226 (1945).
8. 336 U.S. 674 (1949).
9. 345 U.S. 528 (1953).
10. 354 U.S. 416 (1957).
11. Paraphrasing Justice Jackson in Rice v. Rice, 336 U.S. 674, 680 (1949) (dis-
senting opinion).
12. Id. at 676, quoting Macbeth, Act II, scene III, line 65.
13. Vandcibilt v. Vanderbilt, 354 U.S. 416, 425 (dissenting opinion).
14. 391 U.S. 68 (1968).
229
1973] Family and the Court 257
same breath, the Court held in Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability
Insurance Co. that a state may not discriminate against the mother in an action
for the tortious death of a child born out of wedlock. 15 None of the justices in
the majority or in the minority drew any distinction between discrimination
against the child and discrimination against the mother.
Labine v. Vincent,™ decided in 1971, backtracked. The Court held
that a state might discriminate against a child born out of wedlock. The
state might deny him the right to inherit from the man who had publicly
acknowledged him to be his son. Justice Black declared:
There is no biological difference between a wife and a concubine,
nor does the Constitution require that there be such a difference
before the State may assert its power to protect the wife and her
children against the claims of a concubine and her children. The
social difference between a wife and a concubine is analogous to
the difference between a legitimate and an illegitimate child. One
set of relationships is socially sanctioned, legally recognized, and
gives rise to various rights and duties. The other set of relation-
ships is illicit and beyond the recognition of the law. 17
The state's power to create and sanction discriminations based on marriage
was thus roundly asserted in terms the ninctecndi century Court would have
understood.
A year after Justice Black's opinion, the Court decided Weber v. Aetna
Casualty & Surety Co. 16 Children adulterously born out of wedlock sought
compensation under a Workmen's Compensation Act for the death of their
father. Compensation was decreed, and the state statute barring it was invali-
dated. For the Court Justice Powell wrote, "The status of illegitimacy has
expressed through the ages society's condemnation of irresponsible liaisons
beyond the bonds of marriage. But visiting tJiis condemnation on the head
of an infant is illogical and unjust .... Obviously, no child is responsible
for his birth. . . . " 19
The principle set out was large enough to condemn the discrimination
just approved in Labine. Conceivably, to avoid fraud, a state could still
set a high standard of proof of parentage for children born out of wedlock
when their asserted parent was dead. An absolute rejection of their rights
was irreconcilable with Weber. At the end of 1972, the Court affirmed
per curiam Ricliardson v. Davis. 20 The Social Security Administration, by
15. Glona v. American Guar. & Liab. Ins. Co., 391 U.S. 73 (1968).
16. Labine v. Vincent, 401 U.S. 532 (1971).
17. Id. at 538.
18. 406 U.S. 164 (1972).
19. Id. at 175.
20. 409 U.S. 1069 (1972), affg 342 F. Supp. 588 (D. Conn. 1972).
230
258 Catfwlic University Law Review [Vol. 23:255
incorporating the state's inheritance laws, had put children born out of wed-
lock in a second class position for receiving social security benefits on tlieir
falhcr's death. The Court agreed with the District Court that the discrimina-
tion was unconstitutional. Per curiam the next month, January 1973,
the Court decided Gomez v. Perez. 21 Texas gave children born in wedlock
a right to support from their fathers while it did not give children born out
of wedlock. The state, the Court said sweepingly, "may not invidiously dis-
criminate against illegitimate children by denying them substantial benefits
accorded children generally." 22
The force of the Court's repudiation of injury to the children brought into
question statutory schemes ostensibly directed at the parents. Already in
1968, as a construction of the Social Security Act, the Court in King v.
Smith 23 had invalidated Alabama's "man-in-the-house" rule. Alabama
and nineteen other states treated a man cohabiting with a child's mother as
a parent furnishing support. By this device these states denied the child
the status of a dependent child eligible for social security benefits. The
rule was found contrary to the federal Act. Congress, said Chief Justice
Warren, had "determined that immorality and illegitimacy should be dealt
with through rehabilitative measures rather than measures that punish
dependent children." 24
In the wake of Weber and Gomez, the approach taken in King became,
in May of 1973, a matter of constitutional law. The New Jersey Family
Assistance Program for the working poor provided that benefits should be
paid only to married persons with children who were born in wedlock or
with children who were legally adopted. The purpose of t 
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